Tipsheet

Mueller May Have Improperly Obtained Trump Transition Team E-mails

According to Axios, special counsel Robert Mueller has confiscated thousands of e-mails and communications from President Donald J. Trump’s transition team, including from notable figures such as Jared Kushner and other high profile aides.

"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."

These e-mails supposedly all occurred after  the 2016 presidential election. Mueller’s investigation is explicitly to determine if there was any Russian interference before the election that could have rigged the results for Donald Trump. But, according to Axios’ source “Mueller is using the emails to confirm things, and get new leads.”

This, and how exactly Mueller gained access to these communications, raises serious legal questions. Kory Langhofer, an attorney for President Trump, issued a letter to congressional committees on Saturday saying that Mueller had improperly obtained the emails. 

As Fox News notes, Langhofer says that Mueller's team gained access to the e-mails via the General Services Administration. The Transition team was using the GSA's office space and e-mails severs. Trump's attorneys say that in doing so, Mueller may have violated the 4th amendment by asking the GSA for e-mails which were supposed to be private and secure. 

According to Reuters, the letter says “career staff members at the agency unlawfully produced TFA’s private materials, including privileged communications, to the Special Counsel’s Office.”

This story will be updated as details come in.