The New York Times had this neat little story buried in the margins of their website this evening.
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department under President Trump secretly obtained a grand-jury subpoena last year in an attempt to identify the person behind a Twitter account dedicated to mocking Representative Devin Nunes of California, according to a newly unsealed court document.
But Twitter fought the subpoena, as well as an associated gag order barring the company from talking about it publicly. Twitter executives raised skepticism about whether the Justice Department might be abusing federal criminal law-enforcement power to retaliate against a critic of Mr. Nunes, a Republican who is a close ally of Mr. Trump, in violation of the First Amendment.
Ultimately, according to a person familiar with the matter, the Justice Department withdrew the subpoena this spring, after President Biden took office.
The story originally broke in the Wall Street Journal and is authored by reporter Ken Poulsen.
Devin Nunes (R-CA22) is my Congressman. He has been in office since 2003, hasn’t held a town hall meeting with his constituents in over a decade and “communicates,” if that is the word, with the medium of podcasts, appearances on Fox News, and interviews with local KJM radio character Ray Appleton.
Devin is also notoriously thin-skinned and litigious. In 2019 he filed six defamation lawsuits against, among others, a fictitious cow, CNN, Esquire Magazine, and Twitter. To date none of his cases have prospered; indeed, his attorney Stephen Bliss was sanctioned earlier this month for filing a meritless claim in a Federal Court in Maryland after the case had been dismissed “with prejudice.” Nunes was not involved in that matter, but the case was filed by a former Nunes aide.
But what is really appalling here is the use of the Department of Justice to further Devin’s case against a fictitious Twitter parody account and the abuse of a Federal Grand Jury.
I sincerely hope that Attorney General Garland will launch an investigation.