Hi, everybody.

Cheryl Ackison here.

Welcome to another edition of the Cheryl Ackison podcast.

Today, the fascinating and outrageous story straight from one of the victims of how the

DOJ spied on congressional staffers who

were conducting oversight of the agency.

And in an ironic twist, one of those who was spied upon includes Donald Trump's choice

for FBI director, Cash Patel.

An Inspector General report just came out this week involving a story that I reported on for my full-measured TV program this past Sunday.

That would be December 8th. It confirmed the Department of Justice spied on congressional staffers who were conducting oversight of the agency at the time over the Department of Justice attempt to frame Donald Trump for Russia collusion.

Today you're going to hear from one of the staffers who was spied upon and only found out about all of this years later.

At the time of the spying, he was a congressional staffer, a top attorney conducting oversight of the

Department of Justice and others. But what may really blow your mind in an ironic twist,

also included in the spying is another congressional staffer at the time who was conducting

oversight of DOJ, none other than Donald Trump's next FBI director, Cash Patel. What a twisted

web we weave. You'll hear the story today from Jason Foster, an attorney who in 2017 left congressional

work and started a whistleblower oversight group called Empower Oversight.

That's when he belatedly learned he had been spied upon his communications collected by Department of Justice secretly some years before when he was working with Senator Charles

Grassley, working with whistleblowers and conducting oversight of federal agencies, including

the Department of Justice and FBI.

Until about 2017, you did what?

Well, I worked on Capitol Hill for 22 years, 14 of those for Chuck Grassley on various committees.

...