Officials from President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice had reportedly been investigating House Democrats for possibly corruption, even going so far as to subpoena Apple for data from several members’ iPhones and other devices, as reported by ABC News.
The claim comes from an aide with the House Intelligence Committee, who anonymously told ABC that members of the committee had been notified of the subpoena by Apple last month. The request for metadata from their electronic devices had first been made back in February of 2018. Apple informed the members that, as of May of this year, the matter has been settled since President Trump is no longer in office.
Congressman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the chairman of the committee, demanded on Thursday that an inspector general investigation be carried out to look into the claims. Schiff falsely claimed that “President Trump repeatedly and flagrantly demanded that the Department of Justice carry out his political will, and tried to use the Department as a cudgel against his political opponents and members of the media.” There is no evidence to support any of Schiff’s claims.
Schiff and other Democrats have been credibly accused of corruption and political intimidation themselves, primarily through their roles in promoting the debunked “Russian collusion” conspiracy theory. Schiff himself repeatedly claimed to have “evidence” proving that President Trump was secretly an agent of Russia working for Russian President Vladimir Putin, but never presented any such evidence.
Another Democrat on the committee who claims to have been targeted by the subpoena is Congressman Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), who claimed “they did seize my records. It’s wrong…They smear and they try to clear. We have seen this through the Justice Department by Donald Trump, whether it was the reason he was impeached for trying to go after Vice President Biden at the time, or just other efforts, you know, through the Mueller investigation.” Swalwell’s claims are also false, as President Trump was simply trying to investigate the corruption of the Biden family, and simply pointed out how flawed the Mueller investigation was from the very beginning. Swalwell, who echoed Schiff’s calls for an inspector general investigation, has been credibly accused of having an affair with a known Chinese spy, and has refused to deny the allegations.