Republicans demand answers on Mueller team wiping phones, suggest ‘anticipatory obstruction of justice’ Congressional Republicans call the purported accidental ‘wiping’ an ‘amazing coincidence’
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/republicans-demand-answers-on-muellers-team-wiping-phones
Congressional Republicans demanded answers on Friday as to whether there “was a widespread intentional effort” to wipe the mobile devices of multiple people on former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team during the Russia probe, and suggested this could amount to “anticipatory obstruction of justice.”
The calls come after newly released records from the Justice Department showed that at least several dozen phones belonging to members of Mueller’s team were wiped of information because of forgotten passcodes, irreparable screen damage, loss of the device, intentional deletion or other reasons—all before the Justice Department inspector general’s office could review the devices.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, penned a letter to Attorney General Bill Barr and FBI Director Christopher Wray on Friday, pressing for details on what actions were taken to recover material deleted from the mobile devices assigned to Mueller’s team.
“It appears that Special Counsel Mueller’s team may have deleted federal records that could be key to better understanding their decision-making process as they pursued their investigation and wrote their report,” Grassley wrote. “Indeed, many officials apparently deleted the records after the DOJ Inspector General began his inquiry into how the Department mishandled Crossfire Hurricane.”
Grassley wrote that “based on this new information, the number of times and the stated reasons for the deletions calls into question whether or not it was a widespread intentional effort.”
Grassley first raised concerns about the Mueller team’s use of text messages in 2017, after the Justice Department inspector general discovered that texts sent by former FBI agent and member of Mueller’s office Peter Strzok were politically charged.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., on Friday also demanded answers, telling Fox News he was “outraged by it.”
“I’m not a lawyer, but I am aware of the concept of anticipatory obstruction of justice,” Johnson told Fox News in a text message, saying the action of “accidentally wiping a phone because you entered the wrong password too many times” makes him “HIGHLY skeptical,” and a dozen people making “the same mistake is COMPLETELY unbelievable.”
“This needs to be fully investigated,” he said, adding that he has requested a phone call with Wray on Friday to discuss.
Johnson also sent a letter to Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz requesting a probe over the issue.
“These reports are troubling and raise concerns about record retention and transparency,” Johnson said in the letter. “Therefore, I respectfully request that your office open an investigation into this matter to determine what, why, and how information was wiped, whether any wrongdoing occurred, and who these devices belonged to.”
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Capitol, House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Devin Nunes, R-Calif., quipped that the lost data was an “amazing coincidence.”
“It’s an amazing coincidence that all these professional investigators kept accidentally wiping their phones,” Nunes told Fox News. “You’d think these people could come up with a more believable excuse for hiding evidence.”
The new Justice Department records were released after a lawsuit from conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch.
The documents show that Mueller deputy Andrew Weissmann “accidentally wiped” his phone twice after entering the wrong passcode too many times in March 2018. Lawyer James Quarles’ phone “wiped itself” without his intervention, the records say.
The records indicate attorney Greg Andres’ phone was also wiped due to a forgotten passcode. And they say the phones of both Mueller deputy Kyle Freeny and Rush Atkinson were wiped accidentally after they entered the wrong passcode too many times.
The records say that a phone belonging to FBI lawyer Lisa Page – whose anti-Trump texts with Strzok were of interest to investigators — was restored to factory settings when the inspector general’s office received it.
Other officials, whose names are redacted, claim to have unintentionally restored their phone to its factory settings, deleting all records of communication.
Next to the name of one redacted person, the record says: “Phone was in airplane mode, no passcode provided, data unable to be recovered so had to be wiped.”
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