The Charge that Mueller Illegally Obtained Transition Team Emails Is Nonsense

What's more, the lawyer leading the charge against Mueller knew this was bullshit before he made the claim. Was he employing Kellyanne Conway's "alternative facts?" Could be...

Who's turn is it in the barrel? That question haunts Trump, no doubt.

Kory Langhofer, a lawyer for Trump for America attempting to do damage control, has claimed that emails, laptops, and cell phones provided to the Trump transition team by the GSA have been illegally provided to the Mueller investigation.

The trouble with this argument is that it's horseshit, and Langhofer surely must know it:

In the seven-page letter, which was sent to congressional committee leaders on Saturday, a lawyer for the Trump campaign, Kory Langhofer, wrote, "We understand that the Special Counsel’s Office has subsequently made extensive use of the materials it obtained from the GSA, including materials that are susceptible to privilege claims."

According to the letter, the Mueller investigation requested, in a pair of August letters, "the emails, laptops, cell phones, and other materials" for nine transition team members working on "national security and policy matters" and four other "senior" transition team members.

Langhofer argues in the letter that decision by GSA officials went against what he calls "the GSA's previous acknowledgement concerning" the Trump campaign's "rightful ownership and control of" transition team materials.

Okay. On its face, the claims seem sensible, so what gives? The problem arises because the claims are all nonsense:

Specifically, [GSA Deputy Counsel Lenny] Loewentritt said, "in using our devices," transition team members were informed that materials "would not be held back in any law enforcement" actions.

Loewentritt read to BuzzFeed News a series of agreements that anyone had to agree to when using GSA materials during the transition, including that there could be monitoring and auditing of devices and that, "Therefore, no expectation of privacy can be assumed."

Case closed. Alternative facts not in evidence. Better luck next time.

Note. Do realize that this kind of nonsense fits a pattern, one of making false claim after false claim to bolster a narrative that Mueller's investigation is a witch hunt, Fake News, "proves there's no collusion", Democratic sour grapes, illegal, partisan, part of the Deep State, the-system-is-rigged, etc., etc. It's very lawyerly and it's part of Trump's overall Big Lie strategy, to render Mueller's conclusion suspect and/or irrelevant. The one reason that may not be enough to save Trump is that Mueller can indict using grand juries. He doesn't need the DOJ or anybody. So, what happens when Mueller's indictments reach closer to home? Oh boy.