A group of Senate Republicans want an inspector general investigation into the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission for “systematic leaks” to Bloomberg News.
They accused the Biden-Harris administration of weaponizing the administrative state to inflict harm on select businesses through leaks to the “liberal media.”
In a letter sent on Thursday, the senators requested that DOJ Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz and FTC Inspector General Andrew Katsaros launch a probe into whether those agencies violated ethics rules.
The lawmakers, led by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. Tom Cotton, wrote that since early 2023, Bloomberg News broke the news in at least 12 instances that the DOJ or FTC was “preparing” or “poised” to take legal action before an antitrust lawsuit was filed.
The pattern of scoops by Bloomberg News strongly suggested that “certain officials at DOJ and FTC are intentionally publicizing legal action days or weeks before filing,” they said.
Both agencies have ethics rules that prohibit leaking civil cases before the civil cases are filed.
“These leaks aren’t just unethical, but they harm these companies’ employees, shareholders, and others,” the letter said. “If the companies have engaged in wrongdoing, by all means, the government should try them in a court of law. But the Biden-Harris administration shouldn’t try them in the liberal media.”
“These leaks appear to be simply one more instance of this administration weaponizing the administrative state against politically disfavored opponents and critics, much like [the] DOJ investigating parents at school-board meetings or [the] FTC targeting Elon Musk and Twitter for insufficient censorship of conservatives,” it continued.
The FTC said in a statement that agency employees take their “responsibility to protect the confidentiality of the agency’s non-public investigations and deliberative process” seriously.
“Any suspected breaches of confidentiality are referred to the FTC’s OIG for disciplinary action,” it said.
The Washington Times reached out to the Justice Department for comment.
The senators’ list of the dozen leaked news stories ranges from January 2023 to September 2024 and includes scoops like the Justice Department’s plans to sue Google, Amazon and Apple.
The latest story, which broke that the Justice Department planned to sue Visa over allegations that the company had monopolized the debit card market, came a day before the agency formally announced it had filed an antitrust suit in New York.
Bloomberg News declined to comment for this report.
• Alex Miller can be reached at amiller@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.