A Republican congressman is calling on the Justice Department to investigate why state and federal law enforcement raided the home of a veteran investigative reporter and confiscated a stack of her confidential files in August.
“This is unbelievable,” Republican Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert said during remarks on the floor of the House this week. “This is happening in America.”
The Daily Caller broke the news last week that the confidential files of freelance journalist Audrey Hudson, a former reporter for the Washington Times, were taken by the Department of Homeland Security during a predawn raid of her Shady Side, Md. home on Aug. 6. The raid was carried out due to an unrelated criminal case.
On Tuesday, Gohmert read excerpts from that article on the floor of the U.S. House and expressed outrage over the incident.
“I would say that if the subpoena did not allow for them to take her notes pertaining to DHS whistleblowers that provided this reporter information, it begs the question that perhaps these law enforcement officers acting under color of State law or Federal law stole these without due process,” Gohmert said.
“It bears looking into,” he added.
But the Texas Republican expressed a lack of confidence that the Justice Department would actually investigate the incident and “do justice in such an abuse of power.”
“That doesn’t seem to be the case,” Gohmert said.
The search warrant for the raid allowed police to search the residence Hudson shares with her husband. The warrant called for the taking of any guns in the house because Hudson’s husband, according to police, can not own firearms because of a nearly 30-year-old criminal conviction.
But without Hudson’s knowledge, the agents also confiscated a batch of documents that contained information about sources inside the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration.
She said no subpoena for the documents was presented during the raid and argues the confiscation was outside of the search warrant’s parameter.
Speaking broadly about the the Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday, Gohmert called for defunding the cabinet department.
“I think we should defund the Department of Homeland Security until such time as they start being honest about what they are doing and we get answers from the Justice Department,” he said.
