Obtaining the records of lawmakers and their staff during criminal investigations “risks chilling Congress’s ability to conduct oversight of the executive branch,” Horowitz wrote in his 91-page report.

Barr told POLITICO in 2021 that he did not know the Justice Department sought any lawmaker’s records in the leak probes. He declined to be interviewed by Horowitz’s team, but the report says investigators found no indication the issue was raised to Barr’s level. Indeed, the report concludes that — at the time — there was no policy in place to require added review of subpoenas and similar demands for information about lawmakers and their aides.

The inspector general launched the review in June 2021 after President Joe Biden took office and reports revealed that investigators probing leaks of classified information obtained court orders to access phone records of two prominent Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee: Reps. Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell.

Horowitz’s report, which does not identify the lawmakers by name, did not turn up indications that the two outspoken Trump critics were targeted because of their political views or affiliation.

“We did not find any evidence of retaliatory or political motivation by the career prosecutors who issued the compulsory process we reviewed,” the report said.

The Justice Department during the Trump administration also faced scrutiny for efforts to access the email account of then-House Intelligence Committee aide Kash Patel. Patel, who is now Trump’s pick to lead the FBI, has long decried the intrusion by Justice Department officials, which he claimed was retaliation for his effort to undermine the investigation of Trump’s 2016 ties to Russia.

Last year, Patel sued top Justice Department officials over the grand jury subpoena, and his suit was dismissed in September by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta.

Patel was one of the 43 congressional staffers whose phone or email logs were pursued by investigators — a number higher than previously known. The review found that 21 of them were affiliated with Democrats, 20 with Republicans and two were in nonpartisan positions. The Justice Department did not seek or obtain the content of their communications, but only details such as which phone numbers or email accounts they were in contact with and when, Horowitz found.

Around the same time the existence of subpoenas aimed at lawmakers was reported, it emerged that prosecutors also sought phone or email records for journalists at the Washington Post, the New York Times and CNN as part of the same leak investigations.

Barr did approve the subpoenas aimed at reporters, but the department never convened an internal panel that a policy in place at the time said should examine all such requests, the watchdog report found.

Biden called the tactic aimed at reporters “simply wrong” and vowed it would not continue under his administration. Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memo banning the practice and he later formalized that policy in DOJ regulations.

Last year, the Justice Department issued a revised policy on subpoenas aimed at lawmakers. Horowitz’s report reveals that DOJ quietly updated that policy again earlier this year after getting a draft of the review.

The incoming Trump administration is expected to roll back the added protections for journalists and perhaps even to eliminate earlier limits Democratic and Republican administrations had put on such demands. Legislation pending in Congress could block those moves, but last month Trump urged Republican lawmakers to “kill” the measure, known as the PRESS Act.

Another long-awaited report is expected from Horowitz’s office in the coming days: a review of the Justice Department’s actions in the days leading up to the attack on the Capitol by a mob of Donald Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021. That review has been pending for nearly four years. Horowitz recently acknowledged that work on it was frozen for about two years while prosecutors pursued some of the most serious criminal cases stemming from the attack.

Horowitz’s release of the long-awaited investigations comes as Horowitz and other inspectors general across the government face the possibility of being removed or even fired by the incoming Trump administration. Some Trump allies have urged him to install his own appointees in the independent watchdog roles at federal agencies, although traditionally most inspectors general have not resigned during a change of administration or of partisan control of the White House.

Some lawmakers, like Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) have vowed to oppose any attempt by Trump to oust the experienced watchdogs.