The House Judiciary Committee has subpoenaed Arlington’s commonwealth’s attorney, the latest escalation in a months-long dispute over her handling of an ongoing criminal investigation.
Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) has filed a subpoena seeking to compel Commonwealth’s Attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti to release numerous documents related to a case involving the search and seizure of an activist’s cellphone.
The filing, served on Friday on behalf of the House Judiciary Committee, also asks Dehghani-Tafti to produce “all documents referring or relating to” her office’s receipt and use of federal funds.
“The Committee is initiating compulsory process to obtain documents and material needed to fulfill its oversight and legislative obligations,” the subpoena cover letter says.
Dehghani-Tafti disputed the legitimacy of the subpoena and condemned Jordan’s actions in a statement to ARLnow.
“Chairman Jordan’s subpoena is an overreach, a trespass on state and local sovereignty with no legitimate federal interest,” she said. “It also threatens the centuries-old principle of prosecutorial discretion, a principle that Chairman Jordan has shown no difficulty embracing when the prosecutors in question are Republican.”
Jordan has accused Dehghani-Tafti of “politically motivated actions” in the case of 66-year-old retired academic Barbara Wien, who 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. Virginia State Police secured a warrant to seize and search her phone on Oct. 1, but Dehghani-Tafti secured some limitations for that warrant after learning that federal authorities including the FBI were involved in the case.
Dehghani-Tafti has alleged that state law enforcement omitted essential information when it originally approached her office and has raised concerns about “an over-reaching government entity” potentially probing Wien’s device in ways that infringe on her constitutional rights and those of her friends and family.
Jordan disputed arguments that the case is outside the purview of the Judiciary Committee or would interfere with an ongoing investigation.
“Neither argument is persuasive and the Committee does not accept your stated reasons for withholding information,” the chairman wrote. “Accordingly, because of your continued noncompliance, compulsory process is necessary.”
Abbe Lowell, counsel for Dehghani-Tafti, fired back — accusing House Republicans of acting outside of their legal authority in order to harass political opponents.
“Chairman Jordan’s latest subpoena reinforces those misguided priorities with a demand for information about a local investigation that is clearly outside of his jurisdiction and plainly none of his business,” Lowell told ARLnow. “The Commonwealth Attorney has asked us to explore whether any accommodation is possible, and we will make that effort in good faith, but are fully prepared to raise the substantial legal issues this attack on state and local authority raises.”
But Jordan has argued that Dehghani-Tafti is obligated to comply with his request, in part because he says he needs the documents to consider possible legislative changes.
He has listed several potential changes to provide further protections for senior federal officials, such as securing more funding for federal law enforcement agencies, revising laws around security details for these officials, passing “a comprehensive federal anti-doxxing law” and updating statutes “to better address the evolving nature of threats against federally elected officials and employees.”
“While you may disagree about the need to reform federal law to better protect federal officials, you cannot seriously contend that the Committee does not have the authority to do so,” he wrote in the cover letter.
Dehghani-Tafti, meanwhile, said that her decision in every case “rests on two things, and two things only — the facts and the law.”
“I have retained counsel to explore whether any proper accommodation can be reached in this matter, but I will defend the independence of this office and will not allow political pressure to drive prosecutorial decisions,” she said.
The subpoena gives Dehghani-Tafti an April 7 deadline to comply.
This article has been updated to reflect that the subpoena was served on Friday.
