Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., bashed the Biden administration's on Monday during an appearance on Newsmax after revelations that he and several other Republican senators were swept up in a secret records probe surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, protests.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, announced Monday that FBI agents conducted "toll record analysis" — a form of communications metadata review — on at least eight GOP lawmakers, including Johnson.
Johnson said FBI agents subpoenaed and obtained his records without notifying Congress.
"They weren't tapped. They extracted, obtained records from Jan. 4 through Jan. 7 or 8 surrounding Jan. 6, 2021. So they got that metadata," Johnson said on "Rob Schmitt Tonight."
He called the move "absolutely outrageous" and said it shows the politicization of federal law enforcement under former President Joe Biden.
"It doesn't surprise me, but it should shock and outrage every American that people within this highly politicized, highly partisan FBI, Department of Justice under Biden just didn't see a problem in issuing a subpoena for members of Congress," he said.
"By the way, no Democrats involved in that. It's all partisan politics."
Johnson said the FBI never voluntarily disclosed the subpoenas and that the public learned about the surveillance only because of a "fluke" involving a lower-level agent.
"We didn't find this out because of the FBI coming clean," he said. "This is because somebody — a lower-level agent that issued these subpoenas — actually listed this as an accomplishment as this individual was getting recertified for doing this kind of work."
Johnson said the records were part of a privileged file linked to special counsel Jack Smith's prosecution of President Donald Trump, which was reportedly opened to "100 different Republican organizations."
Johnson framed the episode as another example of what he called the "weaponization" of federal law enforcement against conservatives.
"This is outrageous to the extent that they weaponized the federal government against Americans," he told Schmitt.
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