The scandal is over secret seizures of communications records from top lawmakers and news organizations on the ex-President’s enemies list

“We will have to have them come under oath to testify about that.”

The calls for testimony come ahead of Garland’s meeting with senior executives from CNN, the Washington Post and the New York Times. The group is seeking answers on the purpose of demands for journalists’ communications logs — and gag orders covering them up — sought by Trump’s Justice Department, and to prevent future administrations from undertaking such abuses of power.

“It’s a simple goal — it’s to protect the freedom of the press now and in the future,” CNN’s Washington Bureau Chief Sam Feist said on “Reliable Sources” on Sunday.

But the issues raised by the secret subpoenas do not just require accountability. The more details that come out, the more the public understands the kind of attacks on basic US freedoms that could ensue if Trump were to win the presidency in 2024 or if his party picks a leader with similar autocratic tendencies. America is already getting a good taste of that with the GOP’s attempts — inspired by Trump’s election lies — to make it harder for many Americans, including Black voters, to cast ballots and to make it easier for GOP officials and legislators to intervene in the certification process after elections.

What did Trump know?

Coming congressional investigations will likely seek to establish whether the former President orchestrated the demands for data and which officials were involved. Two Democratic lawmakers, House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff and fellow California Rep. Eric Swalwell, were swept up in the secret data operations. The possibility remains that more covert sweeps against others were attempted and are not yet public.

Pelosi also said that she didn’t know if lawmakers other than Schiff and Swalwell were subject to the Trump administration data capture.

“How could it be that there could be an investigation of … members in the other branch of government, and the press and the rest, too, and the attorneys general did not know? So, who are these people? And are they still in the Justice Department?” Pelosi asked.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Sunday said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers and ex-acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker should be added to the list of officials who should be compelled to testify with subpoenas if necessary.

“This was nothing less than a gross abuse of power, an assault on the separation of powers. I don’t think we’ve ever had a record of this happening in the past,” the New York Democrat said at a press conference in New York City on Sunday.

“What has happened here are fingerprints of a dictatorship, not a democracy,” Schumer said.

A broad target for investigations

There are several separate but apparently linked strands to the latest revelations about a possible use by the Trump administration of the Justice Department to advance the former President’s hardline political goals.

It is not yet clear why Schiff and Swalwell were targeted, but they were both raising questions about the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia.

The FBI sent a subpoena to Apple in 2018 seeking metadata from more than 100 accounts, including that of a minor. The demand was accompanied by a gag order which meant Apple was prevented from informing the targets of the seizures that they were under investigation.

Three Washington Post reporters have been informed that the Department last year obtained their phone records from 2017. The New York Times said it fought both the Trump administration and the Biden administration in its early weeks over the email logs of four of its reporters.

The Biden administration said earlier this month that it would no longer seize records from reporters in the course of leak investigations. The White House says it is committed to restoring the independence of the Justice Department that was seriously degraded under Trump. But Garland is now facing questions about his initial approach to news organizations and pressure to give a full accounting of what happened.

Garland meets the press

Garland will be under pressure from media executives in Monday’s meeting to not just explain the extent of the investigations into reporters but to commit to regulatory changes that will prevent future abuses from the Justice Department.

Feist said on “Reliable Sources” that CNN wanted to find out the extent of Justice Department investigations and information about the stories concerned.

“It’s not an accident, I don’t think, that the three news organizations that were targeted by this, by Trump’s Justice Department, were CNN, the New York Times and the Washington Post.”

“These were the organizations that were at the top of his list of enemies of the American people.”

McGahn and his wife received disclosures from Apple last month that their account records were sought by the Justice Department in February 2018, a person familiar told CNN. McGahn, who incurred Trump’s wrath for refusing to cover-up his request to fire then-special counsel Robert Mueller, was still serving in his official White House position at the time.

The Justice Department went to a judge multiple times to keep the data sweep a secret while Trump was in office but the gag order expired in May.

The Department appears to have accessed McGahn and his wife’s information in the same month it swept up Apple’s data related to dozens of phone numbers and email accounts connected to the House Intelligence Committee, including California Democrats Schiff and Swalwell.

It was not immediately clear who in the Justice Department ordered the subpoena for McGahn’s records. But one of the less nefarious possibilities was ruled out when a source said Sunday that the subpoena did not come from Mueller’s team, when the special counsel was investigating whether Trump obstructed justice.

Whatever explanation emerges, the idea that the chief counsel for the presidency was the subject of a subpoena from within Trump’s own Justice Department is yet another staggering development in a coda to a presidency already soaked in abuses of power and anti-democratic maneuvering that, through Trump’s enduring influence over the GOP, threatens to further imperil American democracy.