Republicans have claimed surveillance of their senators under Biden. What does this mean?

A new espionage scandal is gaining momentum in the United States due to the revealed fact of surveillance of nine members of Congress from the Republican Party. During Joe Biden's presidential term, FBI agents requested data on their phone calls to check for involvement in the Capitol takeover. How the head of the White House, Donald Trump, can turn the incident in his favor is in the Izvestia article.

Who was the FBI listening to and why

• The chairman of the US Senate Judiciary Committee, Republican Chuck Grassley, published a declassified document from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) concerning the Capitol seizure on January 6, 2021. It follows from the released file that the FBI, as part of the investigation, monitored the telephone conversations of eight senators and one member of the House of Representatives from the Republican Party. The surveillance was conducted on Lindsey Graham (listed as a terrorist and extremist in the Russian Federation), Marsha Blackburn, Ron Johnson, Josh Hawley, Cynthia Lummis, Bill Hagerty, Dan Sullivan, Tommy Taberville and Mike Kelly.

• According to Johnson, the FBI has not received the contents of the conversations. However, the agency became aware of to whom, at what time the legislators made phone calls and how long the conversations lasted. As part of the investigation, data was collected on calls made in the days leading up to the Capitol takeover. Special Prosecutor Jack Smith requested information from telephone operators in 2023.

• FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed the authenticity of the published document. He also stated that the recordings of telephone conversations were used for political purposes by the administration of the previous president Joe Biden, who defeated the current head of state, Donald Trump, in 2020. Grassley also said that Biden used the FBI as a weapon and called the incident a scandal worse than "Watergate" — then in the early 1970s it became known about wiretapping committed in the interests of President Richard Nixon.

How serious are the charges

• What happened will require a thorough analysis of the legality of the FBI's actions. Usually, checking phone billing during high-profile cases, to which the events of January 6 certainly belong, is a common procedure. It is ironic that this time Republicans who ideologically generally approve of the expansion of the powers of law enforcement agencies came under scrutiny, and Graham openly clashed with Edward Snowden, justifying the US system of surveillance of citizens.

• However, the fact that the surveillance was conducted against lawmakers and Trump supporters makes the incident a political scandal. The question of whether or not the procedure was legal fades into the background, as not only the entire Capitol Hill, but also the White House is under attack.

• Now, while the shutdown continues in the United States (as the American press reacted to the government shutdown, we wrote here), the scandal may not develop immediately. However, in the near future, we should expect checks on whether the FBI agents went beyond their powers. Although it is claimed that the content of the conversations was not disclosed, a significant part of American society will remain in doubt that the employees did not "cross the line." After all, it was extremely important for the Joe Biden administration at that time to bring the investigation into Trump to an end and remove him from the 2024 elections.

What consequences will the scandal lead to?

• The surveillance scandal plays into Trump's hands. First of all, what happened gives him the opportunity to embark with renewed vigor on the purge of law enforcement agencies, which he has been conducting since the beginning of his second term. He had an excuse to once again suspect the FBI and other structures of the existence of individual agents and entire groups sympathetic to the Democratic Party within them. Trump will use this opportunity to bring more loyal people into the law enforcement agencies, thus strengthening his power.

For a word in someone else's pocket: ex-heads of the CIA and the FBI in the United States were accused of lying

The investigation will find out their role in promoting the theory of Trump's alleged ties with Russia.

Secondly, the scandal will serve as confirmation for Trump that his prosecution over the events of January 6 was political in nature, and the cases initiated under Biden were fabricated. He will be able to appeal to a loyal audience in order to once again convince them of his correctness, and give his opponents a reason to doubt the good intentions of the previous administration. Trump received a powerful tool of retribution for the failed attempt to deprive him of his political future and freedom, which was undertaken by Biden's appointees in law enforcement agencies.

The question remains whether the Trump administration will repay the Democrats in kind. The president has received the moral right to use surveillance methods to investigate various cases initiated by the White House recently against his political rivals. With a more loyal FBI staff, Trump will be able to fulfill his dreams of revenge faster, even before the end of his term. However, he will bear the same risks as the Democrats if information about unconventional investigative methods gets out.

• At the same time, experts note that no matter how many opportunities Trump has to deploy a repressive apparatus against his opponents, so far he has not used them. Even the recent indictment of former FBI Director James Comey quickly dropped off the agenda, and he did not pay bail to remain free. Trump has so far managed to intimidate opponents without resorting to force, so it is possible that the current scandal will not lead to consequences for the US political climate and will be limited to reshuffling the FBI.

When preparing the material, Izvestia took into account the opinions of:

• Dmitry Drobnitsky, an American political scientist;
• the American political scientist Vladimir Mozhegov.