On Morning Joe, Mika Brzezinski asked national security reporter Ken Delanian about something many people spotted during yesterday's Pam Bondi hearing.
"Ken, I'm interested in something specific that we could see from one camera angle yesterday, and it looked like the attorney general had, like, the search history of the lawmaker that she was talking with up. And I don't know if that's her search or whose search history it is. What reporting do you have on that? What's going on there?" she asked.
"Mika, I'm glad you brought this up, because in any other time, in any other administration, this would be a massive scandal that would consume acres of newsprint and we'd be talking about it every day," Delanian said.
"There was a binder that showed that she had the search history of Congresswoman Jayapal, the search history when, remember, members of Congress got to view unredacted copies of the Epstein files, and presumably they did so on a Justice Department system. So the Justice Department had access to what they saw, and they used that as opposition research, essentially to try to embarrass the congresswoman.
"And that, by the way, that's an enormous thing. Joe knows this. he was a member of Congress. I mean, remember when Dianne Feinstein accused the CIA credibly of spying on her in their oversight effort on the CIA torture question when a staffer was inside a CIA SCIF going through files? That was a major deal.
"And just think about what the Republican senators have been saying about Jack Smith obtaining their toll records. So according to this, they were spying on these members of Congress and using this information against them. And even the speaker of the House, when he was asked about this, he kind of didn't want to engage. But he said if that was if that happened, that was inappropriate."
Way to go out on a limb, Mike!
"This is a line cross. Members of Congress do not do not like it when they perceive that the executive branch is is poaching on their prerogatives, is using their own information against them, is essentially spying on them. And that looks like that's what happened here, guys."
