Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department will tighten its rules around obtaining records from members of Congress, Attorney General Merrick Garland said Monday, amid revelations the department under former President Donald Trump had secretly seized records from Democrats and members of the media.

“Consistent with our commitment to the rule of law,” Garland said in a statement, “we must ensure that full weight is accorded to separation-of-powers concerns moving forward.”

Garland’s statement came as a Justice Department official said the top national security official, 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 the Biden administration.

The Justice Department is struggling to contain the fallout over revelations that it had confiscated phone data from House Democrats and reporters as part of an aggressive investigation into leaks. The disclosure is also forcing Biden administration officials to wade back into a fight with their predecessors — something they’ve wished to avoid.

News outlets reported last week that the Justice Department had secretly subpoenaed Cupertino, California-based Apple Inc. in 2018 for metadata from two Democratic members of the House Intelligence Committee — California Rep. Adam Schiff and California Rep. Eric Swalwell — as their committee was investigating Trump’s ties to Russia. Schiff, at the time, was the top Democrat on the panel, which was led by Republicans.

Now the House Intelligence Committee Chair, Schiff said Monday that he had spoken with Garland, who had given his commitment to an independent investigation by the inspector general. Schiff said he had “every confidence” that Garland “will also do the kind of top-to-bottom review of the degree to which the department was politicized during the previous administration and take corrective steps.”

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, according to a person familiar with the matter who also was not authorized to discuss it publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

Some people might not know they were targeted because the Apple notification was by email and showed up in the spam filters of some of those who were contacted, the person said.

House Judiciary Committee Chair Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., announced an investigation into the subpoenas on members of Congress and journalists. Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., demanded a copy of the subpoena and other records about the decision to obtain the order.

Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., lambasted a demand by Democrats that former attorneys general William Barr and Jeff Sessions testify before a committee on the subpoenas, saying his Democratic colleagues had given into the “urge to pick at the scab of politically-motivated investigations.” He defended Barr, saying the move was a “witch hunt in the making.”

“There is no need for a partisan circus here in Congress,” he said.

The subpoena, issued Feb. 6, 2018, requested information on 73 phone numbers and 36 email 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.