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Mueller obtains "tens of thousands” of Trump transition emails

Special Counsel Robert Mueller has obtained “many tens of thousands" of Trump transition emails, including emails of Jared Kushner, transition team sources tell Axios.

- Trump officials discovered Mueller had the emails when his prosecutors used them as the basis for questions to witnesses, the sources said.
- The emails include 12 accounts, one of which contains about 7,000 emails, the sources said.
- The accounts include the team's political leadership and the foreign-policy team, the sources said.

Why it matters: The transition emails are said to include sensitive exchanges on matters that include potential appointments, gossip about the views of particular senators involved in the confirmation process, speculation about vulnerabilities of Trump nominees, strategizing about press statements, and policy planning on everything from war to taxes.

- “Mueller is using the emails to confirm things, and get new leads," a transition source told me.

How it happened: The sources say Mueller obtained the emails from the General Services Administration, the government agency that hosted the transition email system, which had addresses ending in “ptt.gov," for Presidential Transition Team.

Taking fight public: Charging "unlawful conduct," Kory Langhofer, counsel for the transition team, wrote in a letter to congressional committees Saturday that "career staff at the General Services Administration ... have unlawfully produced [transition team] private materials, including privileged communications, to the Special Counsel's Office."

- The seven-page later, obtained by Axios, says: "We understand that the Special Counsel's Office has subsequently made extensive use of the materials it obtained from the GSA, including materials that are susceptible to privilege claims."
- The letter says this was a violation of Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure.
- "Additionally, certain portions of the [transition] materials the Special Counsel's Office obtained from the GSA, including materials that are susceptible to privilege claims, have been leaked to the press by unknown persons."

The Special Counsel's office said: "We will decline to comment."

The transition sources said they were surprised about the emails because they have been in touch with Mueller's team and have cooperated.

The twist: The sources say that transition officials assumed that Mueller would come calling, and had sifted through the emails and separated the ones they considered privileged. But the sources said that was for naught, since Mueller has the complete cache from the dozen accounts.

Republicans accused of concocting email scandal against Mueller claim that investigators wrongfully obtained emails of president’s transition team are dismissed as ‘baloney’ and a ploy to discredit Trump-Russia inquiry

The materials included communications from more than a dozen Trump officials, including Michael Flynn.

Republicans have been accused of trying to discredit Trump-Russia investigator Robert Mueller by inventing a claim that his inquiry inappropriately gained access to emails from the president’s transition team.

The complaint from the Trump for America group comes a day after a warning from Adam Schiff, a senior Democrat, that top Republicans are manoeuvring to shut down the House intelligence committee’s Trump–Russia inquiry and weaken Mueller. Some reports suggest Donald Trump is considering firing Mueller, whom he appointed as special counsel to oversee the FBI and justice department investigation of contacts between the Russian government and Trump’s election campaign.

On Saturday it emerged that Mueller’s investigation has gained access to thousands of emails sent and received by officials on Donald Trump’s transition team, which operated between his election and swearing-in.

Kory Langhofer, general counsel for the transition group, has written to the Republican chairs of the House oversight committee and the Senate homeland security committee about what the transition contends was an “unauthorized” disclosure of its emails by the General Services Administration (GSA).

The GSA is a government agency that has supported presidential transitions in recent years and typically houses electronic transition records in its computer system. The transition team says the GSA did not get its permission to hand over the emails.

But Eric Swalwell, a Democrat on the House intelligence committee, said: “This is another attempt to discredit Mueller as his Trump–Russia probe tightens.

“‘Private documents’ on a US government, public email system? What are they afraid was found? Baloney.”

In a series of tweets, Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor, said the Republicans were “playing politics – but this is a bad sign for them”.

“Of course Mueller obtained emails from a third party,” he said. “Prosecutors in most white collar criminal investigations do that. It’s not ‘inappropriate’ or even unusual. Anyone who claims otherwise has no idea what they’re talking about.”

In an interview with Buzzfeed News, the GSA deputy counsel, Lenny Loewentritt, said the Trump transition team were told when they were given access to GSA facilities that any material “would not be held back in any law enforcement” situation. “Therefore, no expectation of privacy can be assumed.”

A spokesperson for Mueller told Buzzfeed: “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.”

Trump-Russia: Republicans trying to kill off investigation, says Adam Schiff
Among the officials who used transition email accounts was former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to a count of making false statements to FBI agents in January and is now cooperating with Mueller’s investigation. Flynn was fired by Trump in February for misleading senior administration officials about his contacts with Russia’s ambassador to the US.

On Friday, Trump added to perceptions he is trying to undermine Mueller’s investigation by declining to rule out a pardon for Flynn.

It’s unclear how revelatory the email accounts maintained by the GSA will be for Mueller. Several high-level Trump advisers sometimes used other email accounts to communicate about transition issues between election day and the inauguration.

Jay Sekulow, an attorney on Trump’s personal legal team, referred questions to the transition group. Neither GSA representatives nor Flynn attorney Robert Kelner were immediately available to respond to emailed requests for comment.

The media site Axios first reported on the transfer of the emails to Mueller’s team.

Jaymyn Maybach, Chicago, United States

An Obama pet project, instead of building something right they built a half a$$ed system that was to have a maximum speed of 110 miles an hour. Prayers for those affected.

twitter.com/krassenstein/status/942856523721728000

Saint of Killers wrote:So uh, does Trump's peace through strength slogan sound kinda... Third Reich-ish to anyone else?

Saint of Killers wrote:So uh, does Trump's peace through strength slogan sound kinda... Third Reich-ish to anyone else?

Rightey wrote:

Saint of Killers wrote:So uh, does Trump's peace through strength slogan sound kinda... Third Reich-ish to anyone else?

Hate to break this to you but Hitler wasn't the first one to come up with that slogan, it basically goes back as early as Plato...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Si_vis_pacem,_para_bellum

Rightey wrote:

Saint of Killers wrote:So uh, does Trump's peace through strength slogan sound kinda... Third Reich-ish to anyone else?

Hate to break this to you but Hitler wasn't the first one to come up with that slogan, it basically goes back as early as Plato...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Si_vis_pacem,_para_bellum

twitter.com/spotastic/status/943007084697833473

Partridge Iciclebubbles wrote:

Saint of Killers wrote:So uh, does Trump's peace through strength slogan sound kinda... Third Reich-ish to anyone else?

It sounds more 1984ish to me.

Plus there's no way Trump could spell krieg macht frei.

Rudolphin wrote:As is tradition, Trump has been added to Disney's Hall of Presidents:

twitter.com/spotastic/status/943007084697833473

Saint of Killers wrote:

Rightey wrote:

Saint of Killers wrote:So uh, does Trump's peace through strength slogan sound kinda... Third Reich-ish to anyone else?

Hate to break this to you but Hitler wasn't the first one to come up with that slogan, it basically goes back as early as Plato...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Si_vis_pacem,_para_bellum

Well it shouldn't surprise given the amount of things they stole for their shitty movement. Also whilst its origins may go as far back as they do, it's just one of the many things to be tainted by the Nazis and so anyone normal would surely think twice before deciding to use it for their own political purposes.

Rightey wrote:

Saint of Killers wrote:So uh, does Trump's peace through strength slogan sound kinda... Third Reich-ish to anyone else?

Hate to break this to you but Hitler wasn't the first one to come up with that slogan, it basically goes back as early as Plato...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Si_vis_pacem,_para_bellum

A pedant wrote:Hate to break it to you, but Natalie Imburglia didn't come up with Torn, it basically goes back as early as the 90s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1SH1YdITDI