At the time, it was one of the more controversial moments of Robert Mueller’s probe: Late last year, news broke that a federal agency turned over tens of thousands of private emails of Trump transition team officials to the special counsel’s team—without a warrant, and without getting the officials’ permission.
Now, according to communications reviewed by The Daily Beast, the transition team is fighting back. They are threatening to call for an inspector general’s investigation of the General Services Administration (GSA), which gave the emails to Mueller, and to potentially try to have officials there sanctioned by the D.C. Bar.
The transition team also charges that the GSA is trying to cover up the involvement of controversial FBI agent Peter Strzok in the allegedly illegal seizure of their emails. A lawyer for the transition team wrote that Strzok “played a larger-than-previously known role in unlawfully seizing our client’s records.”
The dispute is over communications that members of the transition team had over phones and laptops between Election Day and the inauguration. After the inauguration, those phones and laptops—and the communications made over them—were handed off to the GSA for safekeeping. According to the transition team communications reviewed by The Daily Beast, the GSA’s then-General Counsel Richard Beckler assured the transition team that it was merely housing the materials, and that any communications would be locked securely away from prying eyes. – READ MORE
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