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A lawyer with US President Donald Trump's transition team has accused the special counsel that is probing alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election of illegally obtaining "tens of thousands" of emails during its investigation.
Kory Langhofer, counsel for Trump for America, Inc
(TFA), submitted a letter to the primary Senate and House oversight
committees on Thursday, outlining how "career staff at the General
Services Administration (GSA) ... unlawfully produced TFA's private
materials, including privileged communications, to the special counsel's
office".
The GSA is responsible for managing and supporting federal agencies.
In the letter, published by Politico,
Langhofer argued that the special counsel's office "was aware that the
GSA did not own or control the records in question" and that the
documents and "tens of thousands of emails" have been "extensively used"
during the investigation.The letter and accusations have been swiftly discounted by Democrats and other legal experts as an attempt to discredit the Russia-Trump investigation.
The probe, headed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, began in May to investigate any potential links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign.
So far, four people, including Trump's former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, have been charged as part of the investigation.
'Privileged'
Langhofer maintains that although the TFA undertakes "executive or quasi-executive functions … they are not federal agencies" and therefore their communications are private and some are "privileged".The lawyer said the TFA had learned of the disclosure last week.
According to the letter, the FBI requested the copies of the emails, laptops, mobile phones and other materials associated with nine transition members "responsible for national security and policy matters" on August 23.
Langhofer requested that "Congress act immediately to protect future presidential transitions from having their private records misappropriated by government agencies".
Peter Carr, a spokesman for the special counsel's office, said in a statement to Reuters news agency that "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 GSA had not responded to Al Jazeera's request for comment at the time of publication.
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