they desperate: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/...blican-probe-targeting-obama-officials-415916 Senate panel authorizes subpoenas in Republican probe targeting Obama officials The vote represents a significant escalation of the GOP-led Senate Homeland Security panel's probe targeting Trump’s political foes. A Senate committee voted on Wednesday to authorize more than three dozen subpoenas and depositions as part of a highly partisan, Republican-led investigation targeting former Obama administration officials’ role in the presidential transition period. But in a last-minute twist, the GOP-controlled panel decided to scrap a separate vote authorizing a subpoena to Bridget Brink, the U.S. ambassador to Slovakia, as part of the committee’s investigation centering on Joe and Hunter Biden. Still, Wednesday’s vote represents a significant escalation of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee’s probes targeting President Donald Trump’s political foes — less than 50 days before Election Day. In a party-line vote, Republican members of the committee gave its chairman, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), the power to compel testimony from several current and former officials, including former FBI Director James Comey and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who involved in the transition process in 2016 and 2017 as well as the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. The authorization itself means Johnson will be able to wield the threat of politically explosive subpoenas — some against witnesses Trump has repeatedly styled as archenemies — even after Congress recesses in October and the election draws increasingly close. After Johnson pulled down the Brink subpoena, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) indicated that he would have voted against it, which would have effectively killed it. The decision to scrap the Brink subpoena vote was made independently of Romney’s opposition, according to aides, who said Brink agreed earlier this week to testify voluntarily and a subpoena was no longer necessary. Romney said the Biden investigation “has the earmarks of a political exercise,” citing “recent remarks in the media” — a clear reference to Johnson’s recent public statements indicating that his investigation will denigrate Biden’s prospects in the election. Romney also said it was “not the legitimate role of government, for Congress or for taxpayer expense, to be used in an effort to damage political opponents.” Johnson is preparing to release an interim report in the coming days on that probe, which examines Hunter Biden’s role on the board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma. There’s no evidence that Joe Biden or his son were involved in any wrongdoing. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), the Democratic vice presidential nominee, was not present for the vote but was permitted to vote by proxy in accordance with the committee’s rules. Democrats contend that both probes amount to inappropriate fishing expeditions aimed at tarring Biden, the party’s 2020 presidential nominee. They also say Johnson’s investigations mirror a Russian disinformation campaign. Johnson rejects those charges, calling it a “coordinated smear” against him. “Our investigation is focused on uncovering and revealing the truth, but Democrats seem intent at every turn to frustrate and interfere without oversight efforts,” Johnson said, accusing Democrats of “obstructive behavior.” The committee’s action Wednesday targets several high-profile individuals who have long been criticized by Trump and his allies, including former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew and more than two dozen others who are will receive deposition notices. Wednesday’s vote also allows Johnson to issue subpoenas for documents and testimony to McCabe and James Baker, the FBI’s former top lawyer, in addition to top Justice Department official Bruce Ohr and Stefan Halper, who was an informant for the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation that targeted the Trump campaign. Those subpoenas and deposition notices relate to Johnson’s investigation into the presidential transition period in 2016 and 2017, in addition to allegations that Obama administration officials abused their authority as part of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Last month, Johnson subpoenaed the FBI for documents related to that inquiry. Romney voted in favor of the subpoenas and depositions related to the investigation targeting the Obama administration’s actions during the transition, clearing the way for passage. The final vote on Wednesday, which was ultimately scrapped, centered on Johnson’s investigation into claims that a Democratic public-relations firm sought to influence the Obama-era State Department by leveraging Hunter Biden’s role on the board of Burisma. The committee sought to question Brink about “Burisma Holdings and actual or apparent conflicts of interest with U.S.-Ukraine policy,” according to a copy of the committee’s agenda obtained by POLITICO. The committee has already subpoenaed Blue Star Strategies, the Democratic public-relations firm in question. Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, the committee’s top Democrat, sent a letter to Johnson on Monday formally objecting to the proposed subpoenas and deposition notices, accusing Johnson of using the Senate committee’s authority to boost Trump’s re-election effort. “You persist in this course of action despite the fact that you are knowingly advancing discredited claims that our own intelligence community has warned are part of a Russian attack on our democracy,” Peters wrote, adding that the investigation into the presidential transition process “duplicates” the Senate Judiciary Committee’s ongoing review and similar probes that have been already completed, including by the Justice Department’s inspector general. “Despite my warnings and the assessments of our own intelligence community, you persist in using the committee as a conduit for a foreign adversary’s attack on our democracy,” Peters added. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Wednesday sought to pass a resolution “calling for a cessation of any Senate investigation or activity that allows Congress to act as a conduit for Russian information.” Johnson objected to the resolution after Schumer slammed his investigations. “While the rest of the country has been focused on fighting a global pandemic, for the last few months the chairman and Republicans of the committee have wasted taxpayer resources to run a hit job on President Trump’s political rival,” Schumer said. Johnson has denied that his probe has anything to do with the election, but he recently told a radio host that his investigation “would certainly help Donald Trump win reelection and certainly be pretty good, I would say, evidence about not voting for Vice President Biden.” And earlier this week, Johnson said: “Stay tuned. In about a week we’re going to learn a whole lot more of Vice President Biden’s fitness for office.” Many of Johnson’s claims mirror those made by Andriy Derkach, a pro-Russia Ukrainian lawmaker who was just sanctioned by the Treasury Department for election interference. Derkach sent packets of information about Biden to Johnson, but Johnson’s office has denied that the senator received anything from Derkach. In announcing the sanctions, the Treasury Department called Derkach a Russian agent and said he has “waged a covert influence campaign centered on cultivating false and unsubstantiated narratives concerning U.S. officials in the upcoming 2020 Presidential Election, spurring corruption investigations in both Ukraine and the United States designed to culminate prior to election day.” The committee has been briefed on several occasions related to efforts by foreign actors to interfere in the election. The FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force briefed committee aides earlier this year about Andrii Telizhenko, a former Ukrainian diplomat who has pushed unsubstantiated claims about Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election. Shortly after that briefing, Johnson scrapped a planned committee vote to issue a subpoena to Telizhenko after some on the GOP side expressed unease about the former diplomat. Johnson has faced criticism from all sides as he pursues the investigations — from Trump allies who believe he isn’t being aggressive enough and Democrats who say his actions are harming U.S. national security. Moreover, POLITICO reported in August that the CIA is refusing to brief his committee amid intelligence officials’ deep skepticism of the Biden probe.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/13/us/politics/mcmaster-fbi-trump-project-veritas.html Activists and Ex-Spy Said to Have Plotted to Discredit Trump ‘Enemies’ in Government The campaign included planned operations against President Trump’s national security adviser at the time, H.R. McMaster, and F.B.I. employees, according to documents and interviews. WASHINGTON — A network of conservative activists, aided by a British former spy, mounted a campaign during the Trump administration to discredit perceived enemies of President Trump inside the government, according to documents and people involved in the operations. The campaign included a planned sting operation against Mr. Trump’s national security adviser at the time, H.R. McMaster, and secret surveillance operations against F.B.I. employees, aimed at exposing anti-Trump sentiment in the bureau’s ranks. The operations against the F.B.I., run by the conservative group Project Veritas, were conducted from a large home in the Georgetown section of Washington that rented for $10,000 per month. Female undercover operatives arranged dates with the F.B.I. employees with the aim of secretly recording them making disparaging comments about Mr. Trump. The campaign shows the obsession that some of Mr. Trump’s allies had about a shadowy “deep state” trying to blunt his agenda — and the lengths that some were willing to go to try to purge the government of those believed to be disloyal to the president. Central to the effort, according to interviews, was Richard Seddon, a former undercover British spy who was recruited in 2016 by the security contractor Erik Prince to train Project Veritas operatives to infiltrate trade unions, Democratic congressional campaigns and other targets. He ran field operations for Project Veritas until mid-2018. Last year, The New York Times reported that Mr. Seddon ran an expansive effort to gain access to the unions and campaigns and led a hiring effort that nearly tripled the number of the group’s operatives, according to interviews and deposition testimony. He trained operatives at the Prince family ranch in Wyoming. The efforts to target American officials show how a campaign once focused on exposing outside organizations slowly morphed into an operation to ferret out Mr. Trump’s perceived enemies in the government’s ranks. Whether any of Mr. Trump’s White House advisers had direct knowledge of the campaign is unclear, but one of the participants in the operation against Mr. McMaster, Barbara Ledeen, said she was brought on by someone “with access to McMaster’s calendar.” At the time, Ms. Ledeen was a staff member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, then led by Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa. The scheme against Mr. McMaster, revealed in interviews and documents, was one of the most brazen operations of the campaign. It involved a plan to hire a woman armed with a hidden camera to capture Mr. McMaster making inappropriate remarks that his opponents could use as leverage to get him ousted as national security adviser. Although several Project Veritas operatives were involved in the plot, it is unclear whether the group directed it. The group, which is a nonprofit, has a history of conducting sting operations on news organizations, Democratic politicians and advocacy groups. The operation was ultimately abandoned in March 2018 when the conspirators ended up getting what they wanted, albeit by different means. The embattled Mr. McMaster resigned on March 22, a move that avoided a firing by the president who had soured on the three-star general. Project Veritas did not respond to specific questions about the operations. On Thursday, James O’Keefe, the head of the group, said this article was “a smear piece.” “Because The New York Times is losing to Project Veritas in a court of law, it is trying to smear Project Veritas in the court of public opinion,” he said. “I think the court, like me, may well be appalled at The New York Times’s continued pattern of defamation of Project Veritas.” He also released a video. Project Veritas sued The Times for defamation last year over coverage of one of the group’s videos. Neither Mr. Seddon nor Mr. Prince responded to requests for comment. Mr. McMaster declined to comment. When confronted with details about her involvement in the McMaster operation, Ms. Ledeen insisted that she was merely a messenger. “I am not part of a plot,” she said. The operation against Mr. McMaster was hatched not long after an article appeared in BuzzFeed News about a private dinner in 2017. Exactly what happened during the dinner is in dispute, but the article said that Mr. McMaster had disparaged Mr. Trump by calling him an “idiot” with the intelligence of a “kindergartner.” That dinner, at an upscale restaurant in downtown Washington, was attended by Mr. McMaster and Safra A. Catz, the chief executive of Oracle, as well as two of their aides. Not long after, Ms. Catz called Donald F. McGahn II, then the White House counsel, to complain about Mr. McMaster’s behavior, according to two people familiar with the call. White House officials investigated and could not substantiate her claims, people familiar with their inquiry said. Ms. Catz declined to comment, and there is no evidence that she played any role in the plot against Mr. McMaster. Soon after the BuzzFeed article, however, the scheme developed to try to entrap Mr. McMaster: Recruit a woman to stake out the same restaurant, Tosca, with a hidden camera. According to the plan, whenever Mr. McMaster returned by himself, the woman would strike up a conversation with him and, over drinks, try to get him to make comments that could be used to either force him to resign or get him fired. Who initially ordered the operation is unclear. In an interview, Ms. Ledeen said “someone she trusted” contacted her to help with the plan. She said she could not remember who. “Somebody who had his calendar conveyed to me that he goes to Tosca all the time,” she said of Mr. McMaster. According to Ms. Ledeen, she passed the message to a man she believed to be a Project Veritas operative during a meeting at the University Club in Washington. Ms. Ledeen said she believed the man provided her with a fake name. By then, Mr. McMaster already had a raft of enemies among Trump loyalists, who viewed him as a “globalist” creature of the so-called deep state who was committed to policies they vehemently opposed, like remaining committed to a nuclear deal with Iran and keeping American troops in Afghanistan. The president often stoked the fire, railing against national security officials at the C.I.A., F.B.I., State Department and elsewhere who he was convinced were trying to undermine him. These “unelected deep-state operatives who defy the voters to push their own secret agendas,” he said in 2018, “are truly a threat to democracy itself.” Mr. Seddon recruited Tarah Price, who at one point was a Project Veritas operative, and offered to pay her thousands of dollars to participate in the operation, according to interviews and an email written by a former boyfriend of Ms. Price and sent to Project Veritas Exposed, a group that tries to identify the group’s undercover operatives. The May 2018 email, a copy of which was obtained by The Times, said that Ms. Price was “going to get paid $10,000 to go undercover and set up some big-name political figure in Washington.” It was unclear who was funding the operation. Ms. Price’s former boyfriend was apparently unaware of the target of the operation, or that Mr. McMaster had been forced to step down in March. Two people identified the political figure as Mr. McMaster. Ms. Price did not respond to requests for comment. Ms. Ledeen was a longtime staff member for the Judiciary Committee who had been part of past operations in support of Mr. Trump. In 2016, she was involved in a secret effort with Michael T. Flynn — who went on to become Mr. Trump’s first national security adviser — to hunt down thousands of emails that had been deleted from Hillary Clinton’s private email server. According to the report by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, Ms. Ledeen had prepared a 25-page proposal about how to obtain what she believed were “classified emails” that had already been “purloined by our enemies.” The exchange was included in emails the special counsel obtained during the investigation. Ms. Ledeen later claimed to have obtained the deleted Clinton emails from the dark web and sought Mr. Prince’s assistance to authenticate them. “Erik Prince provided funding to hire a tech adviser to ascertain the authenticity of the emails. According to Prince, the tech adviser determined that the emails were not authentic,” the special counsel’s report said. She is part of a network of conservative activists who had particular influence in the Trump White House. She is a member of one group, Groundswell, that pushed to purge the White House and other government agencies of “deep state” enemies of Mr. Trump. Last year, Axios reported that a memo written by Ms. Ledeen — laying out a case against a nominee for a top job in the Treasury Department — was instrumental in Mr. Trump’s decision to withdraw the nomination. Ms. Ledeen is married to Michael Ledeen, who wrote the 2016 book “The Field of Fight” with Mr. Flynn. She said she retired from the Senate earlier this year. After Mr. Flynn resigned under pressure as national security adviser, Mr. Trump gave the job to Mr. McMaster — inciting the ire of loyalists to Mr. Flynn. Ms. Ledeen posted numerous negative articles about Mr. McMaster on her Facebook page. After The Times published its article about Mr. Prince’s work with Project Veritas, she wrote on Facebook, “We owe a lot to Erik Prince.” Mr. Seddon first came to know Mr. Prince in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when he was stationed at the British Embassy in Washington and Mr. Prince’s company, Blackwater, was winning large American government contracts for work in Afghanistan and Iraq. Former colleagues of Mr. Seddon said he nurtured a love of the American West, and of the country’s gun culture. He is married to a longtime State Department officer, Alice Seddon, who retired last year. After Mr. Seddon joined Project Veritas, he set out to professionalize what was once a small operation with a limited budget. He hired former soldiers, a former F.B.I. agent and a British former commando. Documents obtained by The Times show the extent that Mr. Seddon built espionage tactics into training for the group’s operatives — teaching them to use deception to secure information from potential targets. One role-playing exercise involved a trainee being interrogated by a law enforcement officer and having to “defend their cover” and “avoid exciting” the officer. Another exercise instructs trainees in how to target a person in an elevator. The students were encouraged to think of their “targets as a possible future access agent, potential donor, support/facilities agent.” “The student must create and maintain a fictional cover,” one document read. The early training for the operations took place at the Prince family ranch near Cody, Wyo., and Mr. Seddon and his colleagues conducted hiring interviews inside an airport hangar at the Cody airport known locally as the Prince hangar, according to interviews and documents. Mr. Prince is the brother of Betsy DeVos, who served as Mr. Trump’s education secretary. During the interview process, candidates fielded questions meant to figure out their political leanings, including which famous people they might invite to a dinner party and which publications they get their news from. After finishing the exercises, the operatives were told to burn the training materials, according to a former Project Veritas employee. Project Veritas also experienced a windfall during the Trump administration, with millions in donations from private donors and conservative foundations. In 2019, the group received a $1 million contribution made through the law firm Alston & Bird, according to a financial document obtained by The Times. The firm has declined to say on whose behalf the contribution was made. That same year, Project Veritas also received more than $4 million through DonorsTrust, a nonprofit used by conservative groups and individuals. Targeting F.B.I. Employees Project Veritas used undercover operatives to target F.B.I. employees and others who could potentially be publicly exposed as opposing Mr. Trump.Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York Times Around the time Mr. McMaster resigned, Mr. Seddon pushed for Project Veritas to establish a base of operations in Washington and found a six-bedroom estate near the Georgetown University campus, according to former Project Veritas employees. The house had a view of the Potomac River and was steps from a dark, narrow staircase made famous by the film “The Exorcist.” The group used a shell company to rent it, according to Project Veritas documents and interviews. The plan was simple: Use undercover operatives to entrap F.B.I. employees and other government officials who could be publicly exposed as opposing Mr. Trump. The group has previously assigned female operatives to secretly record and discredit male targets — sometimes making first contact with them on dating apps. In 2017, a Project Veritas operative also approached a Washington Post reporter with a false claim that a Senate candidate had impregnated her. During the Trump administration, the F.B.I. became an attractive target for the president’s allies. In late 2017, news reports revealed that a senior F.B.I. counterintelligence agent and a lawyer at the bureau who were working on the Russia investigation had exchanged text messages disparaging Mr. Trump. The president’s supporters and allies in Congress said the texts were proof of bias at the F.B.I. and that the sprawling Russia inquiry was just a plot by the “deep state” to derail the Trump presidency. Project Veritas operatives created fake profiles on dating apps to lure the F.B.I. employees, according to two former Project Veritas employees and a screenshot of one of the accounts. They arranged to meet and arrived with a hidden camera and microphone. Women living at the house had Project Veritas code names, including “Brazil” and “Tiger,” according to three former Project Veritas employees with knowledge of the operations. People living at the house were told not to receive mail using their real names. If they took an Uber home, the driver had to stop before they reached the house to ensure nobody saw where they actually lived, one of the former Project Veritas employees said. One woman living at the house, Anna Khait, was part of several operations against various targets, including a State Department employee. Project Veritas released a video of the operation in 2018, saying it was the first installment in “an undercover video investigation series unmasking the deep state.” In the video, Mr. O’Keefe said Project Veritas had been investigating the deep state for more than a year. He did not mention efforts to target the F.B.I. A former Project Veritas employee and another person identified the woman who targeted the State Department employee as Ms. Khait, who had appeared on the television show “Survivor.” Ms. Khait did not respond to a request for comment. By the time Project Veritas released its first “deep state” video, Mr. Seddon had left the group for other ventures — chafing at what he viewed as Mr. O’Keefe’s desire to produce quick media content rather than to run long-term infiltration operations, three former Project Veritas employees said. He was replaced by Tom Williams, a longtime associate of Mr. Prince’s, two of the former Project Veritas employees said. Mr. Williams also eventually left the group. Mr. O’Keefe has long defended his group’s methods. In his 2018 book, “American Pravda,” Mr. O’Keefe wrote that a “key distinction between the Project Veritas journalist and establishment reporters” is that “while we use deception to gain access, we never deceive our audience.”
I don't see any illegal wiretapping or breaking and entering to gather information. Project Veritas set up operations- as is its modus operandi- to capture words that willingly come out of the mouths of those being surveilled. Not seeing the crime there. I am seeing why it is not desired by some, but that is neither here nor there. Oh I see. Ex British Spy Christopher Steele can surveille and collude to bring down a president and innocent people like Carter Page while being funded by the FBI to do that and unlawfully procuring fisa warrant but we the people cannot monitor and expose the actions of the FBI.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/10/us/politics/justice-department-leaks-trump-administration.html Hunting Leaks, Trump Officials Focused on Democrats in Congress The Justice Department seized records from Apple for metadata of House Intelligence Committee members, their aides and family members. WASHINGTON — As the Justice Department investigated who was behind leaks of classified information early in the Trump administration, it took a highly unusual step: Prosecutors subpoenaed Apple for data from the accounts of at least two Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee, aides and family members. One was a minor. All told, the records of at least a dozen people tied to the committee were seized in 2017 and early 2018, including those of Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, then the panel’s top Democrat and now its chairman, according to committee officials and two other people briefed on the inquiry. Prosecutors, under the beleaguered attorney general, Jeff Sessions, were hunting for the sources behind news media reports about contacts between Trump associates and Russia. Ultimately, the data and other evidence did not tie the committee to the leaks, and investigators debated whether they had hit a dead end and some even discussed closing the inquiry. But William P. Barr revived languishing leak investigations after he became attorney general a year later. He moved a trusted prosecutor from New Jersey with little relevant experience to the main Justice Department to work on the Schiff-related case and about a half-dozen others, according to three people with knowledge of his work who did not want to be identified discussing federal investigations. The zeal in the Trump administration’s efforts to hunt leakers led to the extraordinary step of subpoenaing communications metadata from members of Congress — a nearly unheard-of move outside of corruption investigations. While Justice Department leak investigations are routine, current and former congressional officials familiar with the inquiry said they could not recall an instance in which the records of lawmakers had been seized as part of one. Moreover, just as it did in investigating news organizations, the Justice Department secured a gag order on Apple that expired this year, according to a person familiar with the inquiry, so lawmakers did not know they were being investigated until Apple informed them last month. Prosecutors also eventually secured subpoenas for reporters’ records to try to identify their confidential sources, a move that department policy allows only after all other avenues of inquiry are exhausted. The subpoenas remained secret until the Justice Department disclosed them in recent weeks to the news organizations — The Washington Post, The New York Times and CNN — revelations that set off criticism that the government was intruding on press freedoms. The gag orders and records seizures show how aggressively the Trump administration pursued the inquiries while Mr. Trump declared war on the news media and perceived enemies whom he routinely accused of disclosing damaging information about him, including Mr. Schiff and James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director whom prosecutors focused on in the leak inquiry involving Times records. “Notwithstanding whether there was sufficient predication for the leak investigation itself, including family members and minor children strikes me as extremely aggressive,” said David Laufman, a former Justice Department official who worked on leak investigations. “In combination with former President Trump’s unmistakable vendetta against Congressman Schiff, it raises serious questions about whether the manner in which this investigation was conducted was influenced by political considerations rather than purely legal ones.” A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment, as did Mr. Barr and a representative for Apple. As the years wore on, some officials argued in meetings that charges were becoming less realistic, former Justice Department officials said: They lacked strong evidence, and a jury might not care about information reported years earlier. The Trump administration also declassified some of the information, making it harder for prosecutors to argue that publishing it had harmed the United States. And the president’s attacks on Mr. Schiff and Mr. Comey would allow defense lawyers to argue that any charges were attempts to wield the power of law enforcement against Mr. Trump’s enemies. But Mr. Barr directed prosecutors to continue investigating, contending that the Justice Department’s National Security Division had allowed the cases to languish, according to three people briefed on the cases. Some cases had nothing to do with leaks about Mr. Trump and involved sensitive national security information, one of the people said. But Mr. Barr’s overall view of leaks led some people in the department to eventually see the inquiries as politically motivated. Mr. Schiff called the subpoenas for data on committee members and staff another example of Mr. Trump using the Justice Department as a “cudgel against his political opponents and members of the media.” “It is increasingly apparent that those demands did not fall on deaf ears,” Mr. Schiff said in a statement. “The politicization of the department and the attacks on the rule of law are among the most dangerous assaults on our democracy carried out by the former president.” He said the department informed him in May that the investigation into his committee was closed. But he called on its independent inspector general to investigate the leak case and others that “suggest the weaponization of law enforcement,” an appeal joined by Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Early Hunt for Leaks Soon after Mr. Trump took office in 2017, press reports based on sensitive or classified intelligence threw the White House into chaos. They detailed conversations between the Russian ambassador to the United States at the time and Mr. Trump’s top aides, the president’s pressuring of the F.B.I. and other matters related to the Russia investigation. The White House was adamant that the sources be found and prosecuted, and the Justice Department began a broad look at national security officials from the Obama administration, according to five people briefed on the inquiry. While most officials were ruled out, investigators opened cases that focused on Mr. Comey and his deputy, Andrew G. McCabe, the people said. Prosecutors also began to scrutinize the House Intelligence Committee, including Mr. Schiff, as a potential source of the leaks. As the House’s chief intelligence oversight body, the committee has regular access to sensitive government secrets. Justice Department National Security Division officials briefed the deputy attorney general’s office nearly every other week on the investigations, three former department officials said. In 2017 and 2018, a grand jury subpoenaed Apple and another internet service provider for the records of the people associated with the Intelligence Committee. They learned about most of the subpoenas last month, when Apple informed them that their records had been shared but did not detail the extent of the request, committee officials said. A second service provider had notified one member of the committee’s staff about such a request last year. It was not clear why family members or children were involved, but the investigators could have sought the accounts because they were linked or on the theory that parents were using their children’s phones or computers to hide contacts with journalists. There do not appear to have been similar grand jury subpoenas for records of members or staff of the Senate Intelligence Committee, according to another official familiar with the matter. A spokesman for Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee did not respond to a question about whether they were issued subpoenas. The Justice Department has declined to tell Democrats on the committee whether any Republicans were investigated. Apple turned over only metadata and account information, not photos, emails or other content, according to the person familiar with the inquiry. After the records provided no proof of leaks, prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington discussed ending that piece of their investigation. But Mr. Barr’s decision to bring in an outside prosecutor helped keep the case alive. A CNN report in August 2019 about another leak investigation said prosecutors did not recommend to their superiors that they charge Mr. Comey over memos that he wrote and shared about his interactions with Mr. Trump, which were not ultimately found to contain classified information. Mr. Barr was wary of how Mr. Trump would react, according to a person familiar with the situation. Indeed, Mr. Trump berated the attorney general, who defended the department, telling the president that there was no case against Mr. Comey to be made, the person said. But an investigation remained open into whether Mr. Comey had leaked other classified information about Russia. Revived Cases In February 2020, Mr. Barr placed the prosecutor from New Jersey, Osmar Benvenuto, into the National Security Division. His background was in gang and health care fraud prosecutions. Through a Justice Department spokesman, Mr. Benvenuto declined to comment. Mr. Benvenuto’s appointment was in keeping with Mr. Barr’s desire to keep matters of great interest to the White House in the hands of a small circle of trusted aides and officials. With Mr. Benvenuto involved in the leak inquiries, the F.B.I. questioned Michael Bahar, a former House Intelligence Committee staff member who had gone into private practice in May 2017. The interview, conducted in late spring of 2020, did not yield evidence that led to charges. Prosecutors also redoubled efforts to find out who had leaked material related to Michael T. Flynn, Mr. Trump’s first national security adviser. Details about conversations he had in late 2016 with the Russian ambassador at the time, Sergey I. Kislyak, appeared in news reports in early 2017 and eventually helped prompt both his ouster and federal charges against him. The discussions had also been considered highly classified because the F.B.I. had used a court-authorized secret wiretap of Mr. Kislyak to monitor them. But John Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence and close ally of Mr. Trump’s, seemed to damage the leak inquiry in May 2020, when he declassified transcripts of the calls. The authorized disclosure would have made it more difficult for prosecutors to argue that the news stories had hurt national security. Separately, one of the prosecutors whom Mr. Barr had directed to re-examine the F.B.I.’s criminal case against Mr. Flynn interviewed at least one law enforcement official in the leak investigation after the transcripts were declassified, a move that a person familiar with the matter labeled politically fraught. The biweekly updates on the leak investigations between top officials continued. Julie Edelstein, the deputy chief of counterintelligence and export control, and Matt Blue, the head of the department’s counterterrorism section, briefed John C. Demers, the head of the National Security Division, and Seth DuCharme, an official in the deputy attorney general’s office, on their progress. Mr. Benvenuto was involved in briefings with Mr. Barr. Mr. Demers, Ms. Edelstein, Mr. Blue and Mr. Benvenuto are still at the Justice Department. Their continued presence and leadership roles would seem to ensure that Mr. Biden’s appointees, including Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, would have a full understanding of the investigations.