WATCH_ PolitiFact fact-checks Hawley's phone tap claims

Watch WATCH_ PolitiFact fact-checks Hawley's phone tap claims - Global News on Dailymotion

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00:00Under former President Joe Biden, did the FBI tap Republican senators' phones?

00:04That's what Missouri Senator Josh Hawley said during an October 7th Senate Judiciary Committee

00:09oversight hearing of the Justice Department. I could have sworn that yesterday we learned

00:14that the FBI tapped my phone. But Hawley misused the term tapping. Here's what we know.

00:20Hawley referred to a one-page FBI document from September 2023 about an investigation into

00:25interference in the 2020 election. Senator Chuck Grassley, who is the chairman of the Senate

00:30Judiciary Committee, released the document to the public on October 6th. His press release did not

00:35use the word wiretap. It said the FBI targeted nine Republican lawmakers' cell phones for data about

00:40who was called and when and the length of the calls. But the data didn't include the content of the

00:45calls. Legal experts say wiretapping would involve real-time surveillance or recording of electronic

00:50conversations, not just call logs or metadata. Federal law sets out a process for law enforcement

00:56to get permission to wiretap. Grassley's release said in 2023, the FBI sought and obtained data about

01:02the lawmakers' phone use from January 4th through January 7th, 2021. Those dates are around the time

01:08of the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol. The lawmakers were eight senators. Hawley, Lindsay Graham,

01:14Marsha Blackburn, Bill Haggerty, Diane Sullivan, Tommy Tuberville, Ron Johnson, and Cynthia Lemus.

01:19And one House representative, Mike Kelly. Some, but not all of those lawmakers, had objected to at

01:25least one state's 2020 election results showing that Biden won the election. And some of the

01:30lawmakers had a connection to efforts to submit fake elector certificates for Trump in states where

01:35Biden won. The FBI's investigation into election interference launched in 2022, but was dropped

01:40after Trump won the 2024 election. Hawley's statement contains an element of truth. The FBI,

01:45under Biden's administration, did seek some phone metadata about Republican lawmakers.

01:49But looking at data about when a call was made and to whom is not the same thing as wiretapping,

01:54which gives investigators real-time access to phone conversations. PolitiFact rated Hawley's claim

02:00mostly false.

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