Special counsel obtains thousands of Trump transition emails
WASHINGTON — Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian contacts with President Donald Trump’s campaign has gained access to thousands of emails sent and received by Trump officials before the start of his administration, the general counsel for Trump’s transition organization said.
Mueller’s investigators obtained the emails from the General Services Administration, a federal agency that stored the material, rather than request them from Trump’s still-existing transition group, Trump for America, Kory Langhofer, the group’s general counsel, said in a letter sent to two congressional committees.
Langhofer said in his letter to two congressional committees that the GSA had improperly provided the transition records to Mueller’s team, which he said has been “actively using” the emails. In the letter to the Republican chairmen of the House Oversight and the Senate Homeland Security committees, Langhofer contends that the disclosure by GSA was “unauthorized,” and it considers the documents private and privileged and not government property.
While conservatives have been critical of Mueller’s probe of Russian activities during the 2016 campaign, Trump said Sunday afternoon that he has no plans to fire Mueller.