Aaron Reitz Letter to Richard Blumenthal: Texas U.S. Attorney Orders the Senator to Preserve Ballroom-Probe Records by Nov. 18
The U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Texas told Sen. Richard Blumenthal to preserve every record tied to his investigations — citing two federal civil-rights laws — after the senator wrote to donors to President Donald Trump's White House ballroom. Blumenthal called the implied threat baseless.
AUSTIN — The phrase America is searching this morning — "aaron reitz letter richard blumenthal," the No. 1 trending search in the United States on the Google Trends listing read this cycle — is a fight that starts in Texas. Aaron Reitz, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Texas, wrote to Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut on Wednesday directing him to preserve all documents tied to his investigations, Democracy Docket reported.
In the letter, Reitz gave Blumenthal formal notice of an obligation to preserve all documents, communications and other electronically stored information relevant to what Reitz called an "intent to deprive citizens of their core constitutional rights in violation of 18 USC statutes 241 and 242" — the federal conspiracy-against-rights and deprivation-of-rights laws. The demand reaches Blumenthal's staff, employees, agents, consultants and campaign personnel, warns of "significant legal consequences," and gives the senator until Nov. 18 to show he has taken steps to preserve the materials.
The Associated Press, whose account the desk read this cycle, reported that Reitz pointed to Blumenthal's October letter to people who donated to President Donald Trump's new White House ballroom. Blumenthal, the ranking Democrat on the Senate's Subcommittee on Investigations, has spearheaded an investigation into the ballroom's donors and related family business deals, and he is poised to chair a powerful Senate investigative committee in January. A preservation letter is not a charge, and nothing in the reporting read this cycle shows a court filing or evidence that writing to donors violated anyone's rights.
Blumenthal answered that he "will not be intimidated," the Floridian Press reported, and told the Wall Street Journal: "This is just the latest in a series of unlawful actions on the part of the Trump Administration attempting to intimidate Members of Congress for engaging in constitutionally protected activity. Your implied threat of an investigation is baseless." Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter backed Reitz in the Journal's account: "The First Amendment expressly prohibits Congress from infringing the speech and association rights of Americans. DOJ will defend against threats to those rights, period." Attorney General Todd Blanche struck a different note the same day, telling the AP: "Congress has oversight authority. It always has, it always will."
Reitz is a Texas figure in a national fight: district judges picked him for the Southern District post, and he was sworn in on July 9 after serving as Sen. Ted Cruz's chief of staff and as a top aide to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Texas Standard reported. His deadline for Blumenthal's written confirmation is Nov. 18.
