The chair of the House Judiciary Committee is challenging Arlington’s top prosecutor over a case involving a local activist critical of the Trump administration.
Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) sent a letter to Commonwealth’s Attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti yesterday (Thursday), accusing her of “political bias” and requesting numerous documents related to court proceedings and federal funding for her office.
Citing media coverage in Axios and The New York Times, Jordan took issue with Dehghani-Tafti’s handling of a case where Virginia State Police seized and searched a cell phone belonging to activist Barbara Wien following protests around the North Arlington home of Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy.
Wien has been accused of engaging in a brief confrontation with Miller’s wife, Katie Miller, and distributing politically charged leaflets containing the family’s home address.
Dehghani-Tafti’s office secured significant limitations on a search warrant for Wien’s mobile device after learning that federal authorities including the FBI were involved in the case, noting concerns about how agencies might use information like messages and contacts on the phone. Jordan questioned this decision, suggesting that the prosecutor’s actions were politically motivated and disregarded the safety of Miller and his family.
“Your unmistakably partisan actions suggest that you are willing to not only ignore threats of political violence against those with whom you disagree, but will actively side with those making the threats,” Jordan wrote. “The Miller family deserves the same protections afforded to all Americans, particularly when it comes to feeling safe in their own home.”
Dehghani-Tafti did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.
Jordan requested a wide array of documents from the commonwealth’s attorney’s office. In addition to asking for all case filings, he sought any “documents and communications” between Dehghani-Tafti’s office and Virginia State Police, the FBI, Wien’s council and the local activism group Arlington Neighbors United for Humanity with regards to this case.
The chairman also requested records related to Dehghani-Tafti’s “receipt and use of federal funds.”
“The appearance that you have allowed your political bias to influence an investigation involving a senior Trump Administration official gives rise to substantial federal concerns,” Jordan wrote.
Wien, a former lecturer at the School of International Service at American University, is part of a network of local activists who have been placing pressure on Trump administration officials with ties to Arlington.
“My Showing up for Racial Justice (SURJ) chapter in N. Virginia intends to make [Miller’s] life hell,” Wien texted in a closed messaging group in April, according to a search warrant affidavit. “We have set up a carefully vetted Signal group. Let me know if you are interested in being a part of our campaign.”
The affidavit describes one instance when Wien walked past the Millers’ house while Katie Miller was on the porch. She reportedly pointed at her own eyes and then at Katie Miller’s in an “I’m watching you” gesture.
Additionally, according to the affidavit, fliers with the Millers’ address were distributed around the neighborhood on Sept. 11. They listed numerous political grievances against the White House official, who they accused of being a “Nazi” guilty of “crimes against humanity.”
The Millers have since put their Arlington home on the market and moved into military housing in D.C.
Dehghani-Tafti has asserted that Virginia State Police omitted essential information when consulting with her office about the warrant to seize Wien’s phone.
While “our office was assured that the investigation was local and the purpose of the search was related to local charges only,” the prosecutor said that the Secret Service and FBI accompanied state authorities in serving the warrant. She added that state police had said they only “intended to review communications on the phone and not the entire contents of the phone.”
Jordan’s letter follows other attempts to intervene in this case at both the state and federal level.
Outgoing Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares (R) filed an emergency motion to reconsider last month after, at the request of Dehghani-Tafti and Wien’s council, Arlington and Falls Church Chief Circuit Court Judge Judith Wheat temporarily ordered police to stop searching Wien’s phone.
The attorney general’s argument that such a decision lacked legal precedent prompted a sharp reply from Dehghani-Tafti, whose office is in charge of the case.
“The break-things-and-ask-questions-later approach of the [Office of the Attorney General] puts the rule of law in jeopardy: once downloaded, the contents of Ms. Wien’s phone are no longer private,” Dehghani-Tafti wrote on Oct. 9. “An over-reaching government entity can easily probe her entire life for the purpose of obtaining information that would infringe on her constitutional rights and those of her friends and contacts.”
Wheat has forbidden Virginia State Police from sharing data from Wien’s phone with any agency other than the commonwealth’s attorney’s office without Dehghani-Tafti’s permission. However, the FBI has attempted to circumvent this decision in federal court.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Lindsey Vaala denied a Department of Justice petition for a warrant to search the phone earlier this month, according to Axios.
