Mueller Team In Possession of Thousands of Transition Emails

This must be important to be breaking on a Saturday evening. Looks like Axios and Fox both raced to publish exclusives about 3 hours ago.

Scoop: 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.

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.

According to sources for the Axios article above and the Fox News piece, the emails were obtained from the GSA (General Services Administration) which provided the transition team office space and hosted it's email servers. It appears that they may have also provided hardware based on statements in the Fox News piece.

Trump transition lawyer: Mueller improperly obtained documents in Russia probe

Kory Langhofer, the counsel to Trump for America, wrote in Saturday's letter that the GSA handed over “tens of thousands of emails” to Mueller's probe without "any notice" to the transition.

The attorney said they discovered the “unauthorized disclosures” by the GSA on December 12th and 13th and raised concerns with the special counsel’s office.

“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,” Langhofer writes.

The transition attorney said the special counsel's office also received laptops, cell phones and at least one iPad from the GSA.

Team Trump is not happy and transition lawyer Langhofer is calling it a violation of the 4th Amendment. Langhofer's office sent a 7-page letter to the Senate Homeland Security and House Oversight Committees and I'm guessing provided it to both Axios and Fox News (and I'd imagine others).

The Office of the Special Counsel reportedly declined to comment.

That Team Trump reached out to right-wing media to break this story tonight could suggest something major on the horizon, perhaps as soon as Monday. Hopefully Russian hackers will get a hold of everything and leak it through WikiLeaks. Amirite?

a reply to: theantediluvian

Being released on a Saturday tells me it's really of no importance.

a reply to: Vasa Croe

It looks to me like the Trump people reached out to these media outlets. They both received copies of the letter that was sent today to these two committees. Now it's possible that the information was leaked by members of Congress (they do seem to have problems keeping secrets) but anonymous transition team sources are being quoted as well.

If Team Trump did call up friendly outlets to break this story (which is what I suspect), what would be the purpose of doing it at all if it's of no importance? Why not just let it come out on Monday?

Also, while there's been innuendo, talk of potential bias and the perception of impropriety, this is an actual allegation of the Mueller team doing something improper.

originally posted by: theantediluvian
a reply to: Vasa Croe

It looks to me like the Trump people reached out to these media outlets. They both received copies of the letter that was sent today to these two committees. Now it's possible that the information was leaked by members of Congress (they do seem to have problems keeping secrets) but anonymous transition team sources are being quoted as well.

If Team Trump did call up friendly outlets to break this story (which is what I suspect), what would be the purpose of doing it at all if it's of no importance? Why not just let it come out on Monday?

Also, while there's been innuendo, talk of potential bias and the perception of impropriety, this is an actual allegation of the Mueller team doing something improper.

Well...your assumption that it was "team Trump" that reached out for this release is just an assumption.

Either way, a Saturday release of anything media wise is obviously nothing.

a reply to: Vasa Croe

I think that Fox got a scoop and they raced to release it. The first of next week should be interesting for a couple different reasons.

Yay, another batch of emails/texts that will keep the seesaw going! Who's ready to argue over this for another day or two before another leak pushes the seesaw back the other way? They're supplying enough fuel to keep the fire burning on both sides. Nice!

originally posted by: theantediluvian
This must be important to be breaking on a Saturday evening. Looks like Axios and Fox both raced to publish exclusives about 3 hours ago.

Scoop: 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.

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.

According to the both the sources for the Axios article above and the Fox News piece, the emails were obtained from the GSA (General Services Administration) which provided the transition team office space and hosted it's email servers. It appears that they may have also provided hardware based on statements in the Fox News piece.

Trump transition lawyer: Mueller improperly obtained documents in Russia probe

Kory Langhofer, the counsel to Trump for America, wrote in Saturday's letter that the GSA handed over “tens of thousands of emails” to Mueller's probe without "any notice" to the transition.

The attorney said they discovered the “unauthorized disclosures” by the GSA on December 12th and 13th and raised concerns with the special counsel’s office.

“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,” Langhofer writes.

The transition attorney said the special counsel's office also received laptops, cell phones and at least one iPad from the GSA.

Team Trump is not happy and transition lawyer Langhofer is calling it a violation of the 4th Amendment. Langhofer's office sent a 7-page letter to the Senate Homeland Security and House Oversight Committees and I'm guessing provided it to both Axios and Fox News (and I'd imagine others).

The Office of the Special Counsel reportedly declined to comment.

That Team Trump reached out to right-wing media to break this story tonight could suggest something major on the horizon, perhaps as soon as Monday. Hopefully Russian hackers will get a hold of everything and leak it through WikiLeaks. Amirite?

if they are dumb enough to document crimes in emails they deserve jail time

a reply to: theantediluvian

If Team Trump did call up friendly outlets to break this story (which is what I suspect), what would be the purpose of doing it at all if it's of no importance?

Violation of the Fourth, perhaps that is a good reason.

They also now have client privilege emails ... and that is just wrong.

Lastly, where oh where is the search warrant and when was it served. Oops.

P

a reply to: pheonix358

if they accessed client privileged emails muellers team will be in trouble again

with weissmans history i would not be surprised if he screwed this up

Um.
Was Trump under lawful surveillance?

Oh nevermind, fisa court by way of strjok?

"We can't just indict people on a whim."
What it looks like to me.

a reply to: pheonix358

Lastly, where oh where is the search warrant and when was it served. Oops. 

Maybe it was the FISA warrant that was granted to the Obama DOJ back in the summer of 2016.... most likely using the fake dossier to get it?
It may turn out that nothing will be admissible in the end.

If anything, this looks bad for the Mueller team because it appears they obtained the emails illegally.
Also, if these emails contained anything worthwhile, it would have been leaked by now. They have had these emails for a while now.

originally posted by: whywhynot
a reply to: Vasa Croe

I think that Fox got a scoop and they raced to release it. The first of next week should be interesting for a couple different reasons.

Fox doesn't need a scoop...And even if they got a big one they wouldn't run it on a saturday.....

a reply to: pheonix358

where oh where is the search warrant and when was it served. Oops.

I heard a rumor that Michael Flynn may have flipped. Also, he had already been signaling his willingness to "tell his story" for quite some time, in exchange for immunity.

1) He had security clearance for quite some time. Perhaps gathering evidence as personal insurance policy.

2) If a co-conspirator flips and turns over evidence, is a warrant necessary?

3) Perhaps the Trump team should sue Michael Flynn if he wasn't authorized to share evidence without permission from his co-conspirators.

Disclaimer: I'm just a spectator in the drama, just armchair speculating.

originally posted by: Vasa Croe
a reply to: theantediluvian

Being released on a Saturday tells me it's really of no importance.

Then why the sudden rush to discredit it as "illegally obtained" if it's of such little importance?

Damage control.

originally posted by: Liquesence
Then why the sudden rush to discredit it as "illegally obtained" if it's of such little importance?
Damage control.

What rush? If you read the story, it's fairly clear that no warrant/subpoena was issued for the information, hence the illegal claim. It's not very difficult.

originally posted by: Vasa Croe

originally posted by: whywhynot
a reply to: Vasa Croe

I think that Fox got a scoop and they raced to release it. The first of next week should be interesting for a couple different reasons.

Fox doesn't need a scoop...And even if they got a big one they wouldn't run it on a saturday.....

I disagree, every news organization needs a scoop and will run it as soon as they can to beat the others to it. That’s just basic journalism.

originally posted by: WhatTheory

originally posted by: Liquesence
Then why the sudden rush to discredit it as "illegally obtained" if it's of such little importance?
Damage control.

What rush? If you read the story, it's fairly clear that no warrant/subpoena was issued for the information, hence the illegal claim. It's not very difficult.

What rush?

The rush to discredit by claiming it was "illegaly obtained" when it was obtained in part from public government servers and also part of an active criminal investigation and people already being investigated.

Yeah, I know the heat has been turned up and the discreditation force is pulling doubles...

originally posted by: Liquesence
The rush to discredit by claiming it was "illegaly obtained" when it was obtained in part from public government servers and also part of an active criminal investigation and people already being investigated.

That does not give you the right to take what ever you want. You still need a warrant/subpoena.
Stop being silly or are you purposefully being disingenuous.

a reply to: shooterbrody

"Team Trump is not happy and transition lawyer Langhofer is calling it a violation of the 4th Amendment."

The SWAMP could care less about the 4'th amendment