The US Department of Justice plans to tighten its rules regarding obtaining records from members of the US Congress, US Attorney General Merrick Garland said on Monday, amid revelations that the department under former US president Donald Trump had secretly seized records from Democrats and members of the media.
“Consistent with our commitment to the rule of law, we must ensure that full weight is accorded to separation-of-powers concerns moving forward,” he said.
Garland’s statement came as an official said that US Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers planned to leave by the end of next week.
Demers, who was sworn in a few weeks after the subpoena for the Democrats’ records, is one of the few Trump appointees who has remained in US President Joe Biden’s administration.
The agency is struggling to contain the fallout over revelations that it had confiscated telephone data from Democrats in the US House of Representatives and reporters as part of a leaks probe.
The disclosure is also forcing Biden administration officials to wade back into a fight with their predecessors — something they have wished to avoid.
Media reports last week said that the agency had secretly subpoenaed Apple in 2018 for metadata from two Democratic members of the House Intelligence Committee — US representatives Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell — as they investigated Trump’s ties to Russia.
At the time, Schiff was the highest-ranking Democrat on the committee, which was led by Republicans.
The intelligence panel initially said 12 people connected to the committee — including aides, former aides and family members — had been swept up, but more have since been uncovered, a person familiar with the matter said on condition of anonymity.
The subpoena, issued Feb. 6, 2018, requested information on 73 telephone numbers and 36 e-mail addresses, Apple said.
It also included a nondisclosure order that prohibited the company from notifying any of the people, and it was renewed three times, the company said in a statement.
Apple said it could not challenge the warrants because it had so little information and “it would have been virtually impossible for Apple to understand the intent of the desired information without digging through users’ accounts.”
Garland said that “political or other improper considerations must play no role in any investigative or prosecutorial decisions.”
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not