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[webfact]

Trump allies say Mueller unlawfully obtained thousands of emails

By Steve Holland

 

FILE PHOTO - FBI Director Robert Mueller testifies at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, U.S. on February 16, 2011. REUTERS/Jason Reed/File Photo

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An organisation established for U.S. President Donald Trump's transition to the White House said on Saturday the special counsel investigating allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 election had obtained tens of thousands of emails unlawfully.

 

Kory Langhofer, counsel to the transition team known as Trump for America, Inc. (TFA), wrote a letter to congressional committees to say Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team had improperly received the emails from the General Services Administration (GSA), a government agency.

 

Career staff members at the agency "unlawfully produced TFA's private materials, including privileged communications, to the Special Counsel's Office," according to the letter, a copy of which was seen by Reuters. It said the materials included "tens of thousands of emails."

 

Trump's transition team used facilities of the GSA, which helps manage the U.S. government bureaucracy, in the period between the Republican's November presidential election victory and his inauguration in January.

 

The Trump team's accusation adds to the growing friction between the president's supporters and Mueller's office as it investigates whether Russia interfered in the election and if Trump or anyone on his team colluded with Moscow.

 

Asked for comment, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said: "We continue to cooperate fully with the special counsel and expect this process to wrap up soon."

 

The special counsel's office waved off the transition team's complaint.

 

"When we have obtained emails in the course of our ongoing criminal investigation, we have secured either the account owner's consent or appropriate criminal process," said Peter Carr, spokesman for the special counsel's office.

 

The GSA did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

 

'NO COLLUSION'

 

Democrats say there is a wide-ranging effort by the president’s allies on Capitol Hill and in some media outlets to discredit Mueller’s investigation.

 

Trump himself has loudly declared Mueller's effort a waste of time. "There is absolutely no collusion. That has been proven," Trump told reporters on Friday.

 

Russia denies interfering in the election.

 

On Friday, Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, said he fears the committee's Republican majority intends to close its investigation of the topic prematurely. Some Republicans have argued that Mueller is biased against Trump and should be fired.

 

Langhofer's letter was sent to the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, and the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

 

It asked for Congress to act immediately "to protect future presidential transitions from having their private records misappropriated by government agencies, particularly in the context of sensitive investigations intersecting with political motives."

 

The letter said Mueller's office obtained the emails despite the fact that it was aware the GSA did not own or control the records. It said the special counsel's office has "extensively used the materials in question, including portions that are susceptible to claims of privilege" without notifying the Trump for America team.

 

On the transition team were a number of aides who were later caught up in Mueller's investigation, such as former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

 

Flynn pleaded guilty this month to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia.

 

Langhofer, the Trump transition team lawyer, wrote in his letter that the GSA's transfer of materials was discovered on Dec. 12 and 13.

 

The FBI had requested the materials from GSA staff on Aug. 23, asking for copies of the emails, laptops, cell phones and other materials associated with nine members of the Trump transition team responsible for national security and policy matters, the letter said.

 

The FBI requested the materials of four additional senior members of the Trump transition team on Aug. 30, it said.

 

Langhofer argued that, while such transition teams are involved in executive functions, they are considered private, non-profit organizations whose records are private and not subject to presidential records laws.

 

(Reporting By Steve Holland and John Walcott; Editing by Alistair Bell and Paul Tait)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-12-18

[Samui Bodoh]

5 minutes ago, webfact said:

Kory Langhofer, counsel to the transition team known as Trump for America, Inc. (TFA), wrote a letter to congressional committees to say Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team had improperly received the emails from the General Services Administration (GSA), a government agency.

This is pure and utter nonsense!

 

"Kory Langhofer, counsel to the transition team known as Trump for America, Inc. (TFA), wrote a letter to congressional committees..."

 

If there were even the slightest legal issues surrounding the acquisition of the e-mails, the Trump legal team would be in court. The fact that they wrote to the committee(s) instead of going to court means that this is political noise, pure and simple. 

 

A better headline for this story might be;

 

"Mommy, mommy he called me a bad name!"

[Becker]

And here are the facts:

 

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/12/16/politics/special-counsel-robert-mueller-transition-emails-letter/index.html

[FreddieRoyle]

Oh Mueller, this should have been so easy. You just had to prove Trump colluded with the Russians to cause Hillary to lose her election. But now, having gone to illegal measures to prove your case it is now totally <deleted>. The investigation is now dead in the water and Mueller needs to be charged. Nobody is above the law in the USA, even Mueller. What a shame.

Edited December 18, 2017 by metisdead
Profane acronym removed.

[Silurian]

This is nothing but a PR stunt by transition team lawyers. Instead of issuing a letter of complaint to the Mueller team, the lawyers went to Congress in an attempt to discredit the investigation. Plus, the emails were lawfully obtained.

 

 

Trump lawyer says he did not confront Mueller before complaining about him to Congress

http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-lawyer-says-he-did-not-confront-mueller-before-complaining-about-him-to-congress-2017-12

Edited December 18, 2017 by Silurian

[kamahele]

9 hours ago, FreddieRoyle said:

Oh Mueller, this should have been so easy. You just had to prove Trump colluded with the Russians to cause Hillary to lose her election. But now, having gone to illegal measures to prove your case it is now totally <deleted>. The investigation is now dead in the water and Mueller needs to be charged. Nobody is above the law in the USA, even Mueller. What a shame.

What law has Mueller broken? Certainly none in obtaining these emails which are government property.

[ToS2014]

He should have pulled the good ol HRC thing and no worries. 

[dunroaming]

7 hours ago, FreddieRoyle said:

Oh Mueller, this should have been so easy. You just had to prove Trump colluded with the Russians to cause Hillary to lose her election. But now, having gone to illegal measures to prove your case it is now totally FUBAR. The investigation is now dead in the water and Mueller needs to be charged. Nobody is above the law in the USA, even Mueller. What a shame.

Good to see you are still trying to defend Trump's corner .  There should be no areas that are off limits when exposing illegal acts like these.  Mueller must have access to all areas and information. Go Mueller!

[mike324]

9 hours ago, FreddieRoyle said:

Oh Mueller, this should have been so easy. You just had to prove Trump colluded with the Russians to cause Hillary to lose her election. But now, having gone to illegal measures to prove your case it is now totally <deleted>. The investigation is now dead in the water and Mueller needs to be charged. Nobody is above the law in the USA, even Mueller. What a shame.

I agree with you on one thing, would the investigation have started if Hiliary won?

 

On the other note, Trumps cronies were under investigation for years. So that goes to show how much swamp there are in Trumps backyard, talk about draining the swamp - ironic.

 

The investigation is not dead, it just does not have an explosive  evidence that most are hoping for, people are expecting that Trump personally has a direct connection with Russia which is why he won. I believe Trump doesn't, but his inner circles and those that put him in office does and have abused their positions for their own personal gain. This is the direction the investigation is going.

[dunroaming]

45 minutes ago, mike324 said:

The investigation is not dead, it just does not have an explosive  evidence that most are hoping for, people are expecting that Trump personally has a direct connection with Russia which is why he won. I believe Trump doesn't, but his inner circles and those that put him in office does and have abused their positions for their own personal gain. This is the direction the investigation is going.

I fear you may be correct about Trump.  He may have managed to avoid personal direct contact with Russia and it will end up without enough evidence to impeach him over it.  However he really must be stopped before he does more damage and surely there are other areas that could mean his downfall, sexual predator for one.

[Srikcir]

8 hours ago, webfact said:

they are considered private, non-profit organizations whose records are private

Not when they're put into a (We the People) government server.

 

Unless those emails are designated in part or whole as Secret or Confidential there's very little protocol to their release to an criminal investigative federal agency.

On the other hand nominee-elect Trump didn't hesitate to request the hacking of the DNC's private server and use those illegally obtained emails in his campaign.

 

Also as indicated by Mueller, there were emails for which he received personal permission for release - likely by persons who were copied but not the primary recipient. I suspect also such persons may have in part received their *.gov email copies through private servers (for example *.com) that can be used to cross check *.gov records, ie., emails deleted from the government server.

[dunroaming]

54 minutes ago, mike324 said:

I agree with you on one thing, would the investigation have started if Hillary won?

Well the investigation is to establish whether Russia interfered with the election with Trumps collusion resulting in him winning the Presidency. The key being whether Russia influenced the result. In which case there wouldn't have been this investigation if Hillary had won.

[Sir Swagman]

9 hours ago, FreddieRoyle said:

Oh Mueller, this should have been so easy. You just had to prove Trump colluded with the Russians to cause Hillary to lose her election. But now, having gone to illegal measures to prove your case it is now totally <deleted>. The investigation is now dead in the water and Mueller needs to be charged. Nobody is above the law in the USA, even Mueller. What a shame.

Hmmm, I recall a group in the sixties that you might have been a part of? Freddie and the Dreamers.......

 

[dunroaming]

5 minutes ago, Sir Swagman said:

Hmmm, I recall a group in the sixties that you might have been a part of? Freddie and the Dreamers.......

 

Giving your age away there Sir Swagman...... I like it!   Oops! me too  

[joecoolfrog]

10 hours ago, FreddieRoyle said:

Oh Mueller, this should have been so easy. You just had to prove Trump colluded with the Russians to cause Hillary to lose her election. But now, having gone to illegal measures to prove your case it is now totally <deleted>. The investigation is now dead in the water and Mueller needs to be charged. Nobody is above the law in the USA, even Mueller. What a shame.

What utter nonsense !

[Srikcir]

1 hour ago, Srikcir said:

Not when they're put into a (We the People) government server.

Trump campaign Transition officials signed agreements that warned them that materials kept on the government servers are subject to monitoring and auditing and there's no expectation of privacy. https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2017-12-16/special-counsel-obtains-thousands-of-trump-transition-emails

Trump's counsel has no legal basis to challenge release to Mueller. That's why instead he's engaged in a PR campaign.

[Baerboxer]

Perhaps Trump should get his wife to have a secret meeting with Mueller on some airport runway - keep the prying eyes, sound recorders etc at bay. 

[Trouble]

It appears that the issue at hand is about whether Transition Teams documents are government property or not and whether they should have been turned over with or without proper warrant.  If Mueller obtained them with proper warrant and with notification to the owners of the documents then there is no issue.  There appears to be a difference of opinion about (1) who owns the documents, (2) the agreement between the GSA and the Trump Transition Team, and (3) whether Mueller obtained them in a lawful manner.  It's all a done deal of course and the attorney who filed the letter clearly states this is not about the current investigation but about future transition teams information.  Quite honestly future transitions teams will have to figure out ways to not have every email some staffer writes subject to public disclosure.

 

At this point, Mueller's team members, many of whom now appear to be hardly impartial in the matter, are beating the bush hoping to find anything that can be hung out there as an indication that there was something nefarious between the Trump team and the Russians.  Trump has repeatedly indicated he will not fire Mueller but has said the investigation is nothing but a witch hunt and that there was no collusion. I'm sure most of the nation is tired of the whole thing. Since, in a government with leaks everywhere, there have been no leaks from any of the many separate investigations being conducted, one might conclude that there might be very little there with regard to the collusion matter.  There is no doubt that both the Congressional investigations and the Mueller investigation must come to a conclusion in the not to distant future. You can be sure that on one side or the other, there will be disappointment.  This has all become just a continuing soap opera. What has become more interesting at this point is the inner workings of the FBI during Comey's tenure as it's director.  Seems like some people might not have been entirely impartial during some of their previous investigations.  The soap opera will probably continue after the collusion matter has been concluded.