The Justice Department will investigate the Trump administration's attempt to obtain data from congressmen and journalists

By Rebecca Shabad, Pete Williams, Leigh Ann Caldwell and Ken Dilanian - NBC News

The Justice Department announced on Friday that its internal control body will investigate the seizure of communications records that the government of former President Donald Trump made to some Democratic legislators and journalists.

This decision joins the growing requests in Congress to know exactly what happened in 2017, when the Department of Justice required Apple to hand over account data for at least two Democratic members of the House of Representatives, their employees and family members.

The New York Times also reported last week that four of its reporters were spied on by the Trump administration.

The leader of the Democratic majority in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Dick Durbin, threatened on Friday to subpoena former Trump attorneys general, William Barr and Jeff Sessions, about these investigations.

Democratic members of the House Intelligence Committee are frustrated that the Justice Department has not given them detailed information about the intent to get their data, according to a House official.

A member of that committee said on Friday that the chairman of the panel, Representative Adam Schiff (one of the people affected by the attempt to collect data) -, has not been able to obtain information on the summons of officials of the Administration chaired by Joe Biden.

The committee explicitly asked for the data included in the subpoenas, but the Justice Department has not responded, the official said.

"We have repeatedly posed basic and easily answerable questions to the Department for over a month, but have received virtually no information beyond a confirmation that the investigation is closed," the adviser said in a statement.

[The Trump Administration spied on the phone records of four journalists from The New York Times]

"The Department's refusal to provide information is unacceptable, and they will be held fully accountable for this and other instances in which law enforcement agencies were armed against Trump's political opponents," he added.

The only notification about the subpoenas, the official added, came via email from Apple, a message that some of those who received it believed might be spam until they checked.

The New York Times reported Thursday that, during the Trump administration, the Justice Department cited Apple data in February 2018 related to accounts belonging to at least two Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee.

His family aides, including a minor, were also scrutinized.

A source confirmed to NBC News that the lawmakers and their employees were notified by Apple.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif. AP / J.

Scott Applewhite, File

At the time, the Intelligence Committee was

investigating Russian interference in the 2016 elections

and interviewing witnesses behind closed doors.

Schiff and other Democrats on the committee became some of the most critical of Trump in Congress.

Speaking to CNN's Don Lemon, Congressman

Eric Swalwell, D-

California, said Apple had told him that his records had also been searched.

Joe Biden Reverses Trump Administration Orders Against TikTok and WeChat

June 10, 202102: 39

The investigation was initially launched to find the origin of the leaks of classified information at the beginning of the Trump Administration, according to the aforementioned newspaper.

Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions initiated the investigation which was revived with his successor, William Barr.

The newspaper reported that the investigation ultimately did not connect anyone on the committee to the leaks.

Schiff, the Democratic representative for California and president of the Intelligence Committee in the House of Representatives, denounced this Thursday the "politicization" of the Trump government after the newspaper's information.

"I think it violates the separation of powers but it also makes the Justice Department a wholly owned subsidiary of the president's personal legal interests," said Schiff, whose data was seized, in an interview with MSNBC journalist Rachel Maddow.

[A man pretended to be Trump's family and thus stole thousands from followers of the former president, according to the Prosecutor's Office]

House Speaker

Nancy Pelosi

echoed Schiff's request that the matter be investigated, calling it "instrumentalization of law enforcement by the former president."

"The news about the politicization of the Trump Administration's Justice Department is heartbreaking. These actions appear to be another

heinous attack on our democracy by the former president,"

warned Pelosi.

The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Democrat

Ron Wyden,

said in a statement that the harassment of the phone records was

"a direct attack on the separation of powers and the independence of Congress"

and called for an investigation of Sessions and Barr.

"There must be a full investigation into the abuses under former Attorneys General Sessions and Barr. Anyone from the Republican Party who was complicit in these abuses of power cannot be trusted to continue serving in government," according to the statement.