WASHINGTON: The special counsel probing whether US President
Donald Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia has unlawfully received
tens of thousands of emails, a lawyer for Trump’s transition team
alleges, according to US media.
In a letter to
congressional committees, Kory Langhofer says the General Services
Administration (GSA) “unlawfully produced” the private materials,
including privileged communications which special counsel Robert Mueller
then used as part of his Russia probe, Axios news site reported on
Saturday.
The GSA is the government agency which supports presidential transitions.
The
accusations by Langhofer, representing Trump’s transition team, are the
latest move by Republicans seeking to raise doubts about the
credibility of Mueller’s investigation, which has already led to charges
against Trump’s former national security adviser and three other people
linked to the presidential campaign.
Langhofer wrote
that Mueller’s office “received from the GSA tens of thousands of
emails, including a very significant volume of privileged material”,
according to a copy of the letter published by Politico.
The
letter suggests that a warrant should have been obtained for such
materials, and says that the incident undermines the Presidential
Transition Act.
A spokesman for Mueller, Peter Carr, responded on Sunday to the accusations, according to CNN.
“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,” CNN quoted him as saying.
Reaction also came from California Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell.
“This
is another attempt to discredit Mueller as his TrumpRussia probe
tightens,” he said on Twitter, in response to the Langhofer accusations.
Some
members of Trump’s Republican Party have already urged that a second
special counsel be named to investigate Mueller’s operation.
The
special counsel’s critics have seized upon the case of Peter Strzok, a
senior FBI agent whom Mueller removed from his team for sending text
messages critical of Trump.
In addition to whether
Trump’s campaign team colluded with Russia to help him win last year’s
election, the special counsel is also looking at possible obstruction of
justice, after Trump fired FBI director James Comey.
Trump has repeatedly denied that there was any collusion.
