Barr distances himself from Trump-era subpoenas of Democratic ...

The department said on Friday that Horowitz's review would center on “DOJ’s use of subpoenas and other legal authorities” to obtain records of lawmakers, journalists, and others associated with ongoing investigations into unauthorized leaks.In a statement on Friday, Schiff applauded the Attorney General for requesting and Inspector General investigation into the matter but said it “will not obviate the need for other forms of oversight and accountability — including public oversight by Congress — and the department must cooperate in that effort as well.”Democratic congressional leaders are already vowing to investigate the Trump Justice Department’s efforts to seize the communications records. “The Justice Department has specific procedures for such sensitive investigations, and the inspector general is already working to determine if they were followed.”Barr said he installed Osmar Benvenuto in DOJ’s National Security Division in February 2020 to try to revive the leak investigations after Craig Carpenito, the U.S. attorney for New Jersey, recommended him to Barr as “a very experienced prosecutor [who] could quickly sort out which of any of these cases merited further investigative steps and what could be done to bring them to resolution.”“I was getting criticized by Cabinet members and members of the Intelligence Community about the department not having done anything on these leak cases, so I wanted to make sure they were being pursued,” Barr said.When the subpoenas reportedly went out, Rod Rosenstein was the deputy attorney general.