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 transition sources said they were surprised about the emails because they have been in touch with Mueller's team and have cooperated.... 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.
December 17, 2017
"Mueller obtains 'tens of thousands' of Trump transition emails."
Axios explains. Excerpt:
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«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 225 of 225This thread is old and stale but I want to jump in with my $0.02.
I think Mueller has something and something pretty big.
It's not collusion because 1. He, afaik, has not taken the DNC servers to be tested. For collusion he'd have to prove the Russians actually hacked the DNC and Podesta and 2. Flynn pled guilty to lying and not conspiracy.
The fact Flynn plead and cooperated shows there is something going on. Flynn would not have plead to lying after Comey and McCade(?) testified the FBI determined he was truthful in Flynn's statements. Also Flynn had to know Strzok was compromised.
Mueller has been very aggressive from the git go. This taking Trump's transitional emails on shaky legal grounds also shows Mueller feels comfortable going strong.
I really don't think it's some bullshit Logan Act violation or the President "obstructing" Justice. If that's all he has he is creating a constitutional crisis on weak grounds and will probably lead to Trump's re-election. They don't want that.
There is too much comparison between the kid glove investigation into an actual crime committed by Clinton and the balls to the wall assault on Trump to find any crime at all.
I've never seen the words "to too" used consecutively in a sentence. Good work, Inga.
@Bill
I have to disagree. If it's not collusion, then what is it? It's a process crime and/or something completely unrelated, such as unsavory financial arrangements that have nothing to do with the election. I think Mueller is after something, anything, to save him from accusations of windmill jousting.
Paco: ... when in fact it was just an unattributed copy-paste from somebody named Seth Abramson....
I was just discussing this lack of attribution habit, which always strikes me as very odd, and is unfortunately common. His view was that it wasn't any deliberate dishonesty, just people never having been taught basic research skills and conventions. Plagiarism? What's that?
I think that's true. (And phones. It can be a pain to cite on phones, and even people who know better get sloppy.)
But that twitter feed you linked. Jesus wept. But I couldn't stop laughing.
@Bill, I'm going to vote with Rt1 Rebel. The "slow motion coup" meme looks more accurate daily.
And here's the question that no Democrat can seem to provide a plausible answer to. Why on earth would Putin prefer Trump in the White House over Hillary Clinton. Assuming he has lots of dirt suitable for blackmail on Hillary, based on the likelihood of her server having been hacked, why wouldn't he rather have her in the White House? Not to mention that Trump is pushing completion of the Keystone XL and Dakota pipelines, the completion of which are not in the interests of oil exporter Russia. Not to mention that the US fracking is hitting Russia's gas exports in the wallet. Not to mention Trump strengthening and Clinton weakening American military capability.
You Democrats assume Vlad Putin is stupid. That's a foolish assumption, and you are fools.
Big Mike: here's a pre-election (and therefore not completely overcome with hysteria, just mildy biased) article from Politico about why Putin doesn't like H. Clinton. In short, it seems likely he blames her for interference in Russian internal politics.
I would think that Putin would rather have had Hillary shutting down the North American energy revolution, as she promised, but maybe he didn’t believe anything she said either.
@Paco, are you familiar with the phrase "thin gruel"?
Russian leaders have been dealing with charges of unfair elections since the days of Stalin. Comes under the heading "interesting but so what"? Why would he damage his own economy to punish someone for not being likeable?
The story as I understand it is that Putin blamed the Obama admin. (and Hillary) for fomenting demonstrations within Russia, not just complaining about fairness from afar. I'm not Putin, so I have no idea whether it's true or not. I do blame the Obama admin. for doing a lot of stupid shit re: needlessly provoking Russia.
Dear Lord. Every single word on that Seth Abramson list is hilariously false, including "and" and "the". Lefties used to be pretty good at bullshit, mixing in a decent amount of truth among the lies to give it some credibility, but... Wow. So spectacularly lame.
Yes its the full lillian bellman.
Did you mean Lillian Hellman?
This taking Trump's transitional emails on shaky legal grounds also shows Mueller feels comfortable going strong.
Or desperation to show something for all the money spent.
Remember "Fitzmas ?"
And then here's Don Surber to place the cherry on top of the ice cream sundae.
Maybe I'm wrong about Mueller. If he has nothing more than a process crime or stupid new Logan Act theory, then all hell will break lose. Time to defend FBI, restructure DOJ, shrink the bureaucracy and reform special counsel laws. Look at Church Committee and the allegations were not so serious.
Actually maybe not. The GOP hasn't made a peep about Sen. Stevens, Govs. Perry or Walker, IRS and even the friggen NPS. Maybe Mueller's betting if he strikes out, nothing will happen.
But still large part of the country would be convinced the system is rigged beyond fixing.
Mueller better have something big or we will enter a dangerous place.
Michael K I sure do remember Fitzmas very well even though the lefties would rather forget. Something I have not seen commentary on is how similar the intelligence leaks during the GW Bush years remind me so much was has gone on the last year. NYT and Waspo getting damaging leaks every few days while the Bush administration haplessly tried to ignore them or pretended the truth will out in the end. Look what it got them. Things are different this time around. And now we have intelligence people coming forward and opining maybe this wasn't such a good idea to try to torpedo a sitting president.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2017/12/11/former-cia-director-admits-thoughtful-intelligence-operation-against-candidate-trump-now-regrets/
It would be nice if the Antitrust Division of the DOJ would get together and go after the collusion in the print media business. It's obvious. It's longstanding. It hurts the customers.
Also, go after the broadcast media under Antitrust. They, just like print media, are actively colluding to report the same things, ignore the same things and push the same "narratives" in ways competitors should not be allowed to do.
The third party agenda setters, including Fusion GPS which was paying reporters (evidence of collusion in violation of Sherman), are the enforcement mechanisms by which the cartel is maintained.
Novel legal theories are not hard to generate.
Bruce Hayden:
Of course you are correct that if prosecutors in Mr. Mueller's office used privileged information knowingly or recklessly they are in a lot of trouble.
But the letter doesn't say that. It says the information that the prosecutors received was "susceptible" to claims of privilege. This appears to be a deliberately chosen weasel word. You would need more to get the evidence suppressed and a whole lot more to justify sanctions. Maybe those showings can be made, but this letter doesn't suggest how.
Moreover, if you have a real claim of privilege or prosecutorial misconduct, you make it before a tribunal, as fast as you can. You don't send a letter to Congress demanding reform.
If they go to court and win, fair enough. Perhaps they can also show an ethical violation. If not, then the letter is just PR.
@Stephen
I don’t know yet whether Mueller’s people have used privileged information yet, or not, against the Trump transition team, etc. that is really irrelevant. First, and foremost, they shouldn’t have had it in the first place. Indeed, they shouldn’t have any of it. If this were a civil matter, they likely would have needed a subpoena. But Mueller investigation is potentially criminal, which means that if the transition team had an expectation of privacy (which they lay out a case for in the letter), then a warrant issued by a federal court of competent jurisdiction would have been required under the 4th Amdt. They apparently had neither subpoena nor warrant. Because of that, there is a good argument that nothing discovered from the transition emails would be admissible, privileged or not, and anything resulting from that information, as the tree from the forbidden fruit. The reason for such suppression, of course, is to discourage federal investigators and prosecutors from violating rights, as the Mueller team seems to have done here. And it also very likely violated federal laws, DoJ regulations, and ethical rules.
The issue about Privilege is mostly separate. It just aggravates the offence, and the ethical issues. The Mueller team apparently illegally had access to information over which the transition team claimed Executive Privilege (and, yes, there is case law supporting that claim), as well as attorney/client privilege. The former appears to include documents that show Trump’sinner decision making process, esp when it came to selection of cabinet, etc nominees. Why did he pick Sessions? Mathis? Zinke? Etc. and, no doubt, there were future executive policies, etc discussed. None of which was discoverable. Compounding that, the Mueller team, composed of Deep State operatives, leaks like a sieve. They most likely had no legal right to any of that privileged information. The way it should have happened is that the Mueller team went to the Trump transition team, with a request (which is what the Trump people expected), a subpoena, or warrant (if they refused the request), and the Trump people would have provided the Mueller people what the documents over which they didn’t assert privilege, and probably a Privilege Log indicating what privilege(s) was being asserted for the withheld documents. The two parties could then negotiate or litigate over the documents withheld through a claim of privilege. By the Mueller team illegally obtaining the entirety of the transition team’s emails, they prevented the transition team from timely asserting privilege.
Finally, there is no tribunal involved to run to. This is just an arguably runaway investigation that has, to our knowledge, merely found a couple process crimes, that were, essentially, a result of the investigation itself. They went to Congress in their oversight role, so that the federal govt officials involved can be interviewed by Congressional committees. But, they probably should go to the DoJ and lodge a formal complaint, and maybe apply to get a court order requiring that all the illegally obtained documents be returned or destroyed. But the harm has already been done. The highly partisan Mueller investigators and litigators have already seen and reviewed documents that they had no legal right to see.
I think it is clear that Mueller went the route he did because they are no longer investigating an actual crime- otherwise they would have ensured their legal ground was sound by issuing a subpoena or getting a warrant. They did't do this because it would have alerted the Trump lawyers that Mueller had the material in August instead of last week. It is beyond curious that Mueller went to the GSA almost as soon as Beckler was out of the process- this suggests that the Trump lawyer is telling the truth about the meeting and that Lowentritt is lying. I am willing to bet that Trump's lawyers can prove Lowentritt is lying to boot- the letter yesterday was a warning shot- the kill shot will be taken in court.
As I wrote earlier, the damning thing to Lowentritt and Mueller here is that no one at the GSA informed anyone outside that agency that the documents and equipment had been turned over for four months. The only explanation that makes sense here is this- they were directly ordered by someone to not inform anyone else. Mueller has been using the material to set perjury traps, and it seems to not have worked since the Trump legal team figured out Mueller had the material just from the questions asked. I doubt anyone fell into the traps.
Stephen,
If you illegally stick your dick in a woman, the legal remedy is not to pull it out. The more so, I suppose, if you do it a hundred times.
Bruce Hayden
I appreciate your response.
We will probably have to agree to disagree.
Not a 4th A violation because GSA consented and they clearly had custody of the emails.
Not a privilege violation unless they can win the privilege argument. As you say at the beginning of your post we don’t know if they can. But you have to admit “susceptible” is a weak word.
Finally where do you get the argument there is no court to go to? The DC federal district court has jurisdiction, doesn’t it.
Bad Lieutenant,
Bad analogy.
I agree with Yancy Ward, except I think Mueller is fishing for material to go into opposition folders for Democrats more than he’s actually hoping to find criminal activities. Remember the destination for Emails collected by the Wisconsin John Doe investigation?
Bad Lieutenant,
Bad analogy.
Stephen,
Your economy of words is matched only by your economy of thought.
“Not a 4th A violation because GSA consented and they clearly had custody of the emails.”
The agreement between the PTT and FSA (according to the letter from the PTT atty) put the GSA in a fiduciary position in regards to the PTT emails and electronics c devices. My view is that the question in regards to the 4th Amdt is whether the PTT had a reasonable expectation of privacy, which their agreements, written and they claim verbal, would have provided. Your argument seems to be that regardless of what the GSA promised the PTT, and no matter what the Presidential transition statutes provide, that the FBI could just ignore that agreement because they are the same govt, essentially the same party. But that cuts the other way too - the GSA contract with the PTT bound the DoJ and FBI as much as it did the GSA to confidentially, since they are legally the same party. Besides, even if that weren’t true, the GSA breached the MOU agreement with the PTT by turning over the emails and electronic devices to the FBI w/o either a warrant or subpoena, thus violating their duty of confidentiality and being a fiduciary.
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