Special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian contacts with US President Donald Trump’s campaign has gained access to thousands of emails sent and received by Trump officials before the start of his administration, according to people familiar with Mr Trump’s transition organisation.
But the investigators did not directly request the records from Mr Trump’s still-existing transition group, Trump for America, and instead obtained them from the General Services Administration (GSA), a separate federal agency that stored the material, according to those familiar with the Trump transition organisation.
The tens of thousands of emails in question pertain to 13 senior Trump transition officials. Many of the emails Mr Mueller’s investigators have now include national security discussions about possible Trump international aims as well as candid assessments of candidates for top government posts.
On Saturday, Kory Langhofer, general counsel for the transition group, sent a letter to two congressional committees arguing that the GSA had improperly provided the transition records to Mr Mueller’s investigators. In the letter to the Republican chairmen of the House Oversight and the Senate Homeland Security committees, Mr Langhofer contends that the disclosure by GSA was “unauthorised” and it considers the documents private and privileged and not government property.
But later, another GSA official told Buzzfeed News there was nothing improper about the disclosure of the emails.
The GSA has provided office space and other aid to presidential transitions in recent years and typically houses electronic transition records in its computer system.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel