Panic room
by Tom Sullivan
Still from Panic Room (2002).
They’re inside the house.
A lawyer from the Trump transition team accused Robert Mueller on Saturday of illegally obtaining thousands of transition emails as part of his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. In a letter to the Senate Homeland Security and House Oversight and Government Reform committees, Kory Langhofer, representing Trump for America (TFA), alleges Fourth Amendment violations ans well as possible violations of attorney-client privilege. Mueller’s team obtained the emails last summer from the General Services Administration.
The Guardian provides some context:
The complaint from the Trump for America group comes a day after a warning from Adam Schiff, a senior Democrat, that top Republicans are manoeuvring to shut down the House intelligence committee’s Trump–Russia inquiry and weaken Mueller. Some reports suggest Donald Trump is considering firing Mueller, whom he appointed as special counsel to oversee the FBI and justice department investigation of contacts between the Russian government and Trump’s election campaign.
Mueller spokesman Peter Carr released a statement early this morning, stating, “When we have obtained emails in the course of our ongoing criminal investigation, we have secured either the account owner’s consent or appropriate criminal process.”
The Guardian report adds:
In an interview with Buzzfeed News, the GSA deputy counsel, Lenny Loewentritt, said the Trump transition team were told when they were given access to GSA facilities that any material “would not be held back in any law enforcement” situation. “Therefore, no expectation of privacy can be assumed.”
An air of panic seems to have set in among the president’s faithful as Mueller’s Russia investigation reaches into the Oval Office.
Are you just going to take that Mr. President? From #MuellerInvestigation? https://t.co/zXarrOjOAm— H. A. Goodman (@HAGOODMANAUTHOR) December 17, 2017
Plum Line’s Greg Sargent pointed to another flinging-anything-at-the-wall session last night by Fox News’ Jeanine Pirro:
This is the clearest example yet of the concerted Big Lie campaign that is underway to goad Trump into full-blown authoritarianism, autocracy, and lawlessness:https://t.co/2L3vccfYi7 https://t.co/iIycqscQU7— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) December 17, 2017
Commenting on Langhofer’s accusations, former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti said in a tweet, “If Mueller didn’t follow the law, a court would suppress the evidence so it couldn’t be used. The reason Trump’s lawyers are writing letters to Congress instead of Mueller or a court is because their legal arguments have no merit.” Sargent replied, “The reason they are doing this is to give Fox News and select House Republicans more material to beat the drum that the Mueller probe is illegitimate.”
But there is another level to why the Trump transition team is squealing so loudly over the GSA emails. Marcy Wheeler explains:
Kory Lanhofer is insinuating — without quite risking the claim — that after GSA shared certain emails with Robert Mueller’s office, “unknown persons” leaked them to the press. The insinuation is that Mueller’s team leaked them.
I can think of just one set of emails that fit this description: emails from KT McFarland that provided proof that Mike Flynn lied to the FBI about his conversations with Sergei Kislyak on December 29, 2016. The NYT quoted extensively from them in a December 2 story.
That would be the Russia “has just thrown the U.S.A. election to” Trump thread. Wheeler continues:
But consider the other implication of this: Lanhofer is suggesting that this email chain (which included no named active lawyers, nor included Trump directly, though they were written in Trump’s presence at Mar a Lago) is “susceptible to privilege claims.” He is further suggesting that GSA is the only way this email could have been released (ignoring, of course, the Bannon/Priebus/Spicer) options.
If that’s right, then he’s suggesting that Trump was involved in this email chain directly. There’s no reason to believe he was CCed. But since the emails were written from Mar-a-Lago, it’s likely he was consulted in the drafting of the emails.
In addition, Lanhofer is also admitting that Trump’s team didn’t release these emails directly — at least not to Congress.
A White House that has never displayed a reflex for anything other than attacking its foes will fully support egging on any and all of Mueller’s critics as the investigation closes in on the Oval Office. All the advice about the perils of firing Mueller will not phase him, so it is best to be prepared to take to the streets when the time comes.
His loss in Alabama may have wounded him, but passage of the tax bill this week, as seems likely, will erase that from memory. He’ll be drunk and bulletproof and primed to do something spectacularly stupid.
And his cultish followers? The phrase “dying moments of the cobra” comes to mind. Except in this case, it is likely to be a zombie cobra. Even when it looks dead, it won’t be.
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