BUT HIS EMAILS!: More Lies From Trumpland, Because Bullshit Doesn't Take The Weekend Off

Donald Trump is mad. Mad that someone looked at his emails without his permission.
Let's put aside the brain-melting irony of the guy who "loves Wikileaks" and encouraged Russia to hack Hillary Clinton's emails bitching about having his communications "unlawfully" accessed in a criminal investigation. If we stop to point out every clanging hypocrisy in Trumpland, we'll never get to the point that this new tantrum from the Trump transition team lawyer is UTTER BULLSHIT!
But, like Evan told us on Friday, we do have to examine some of the monkeyshit the the Fox News howler brigade is flinging in the air to try to discredit the Mueller investigation. So let's glove up and make quick work of this, then we can all get back to our Sunday lives. Donald Trump does not get to ruin our weekend, dammit!
OPINION: @GreggJarrett: Special Counsel Robert Mueller is accused of acting in complete disregard for the law and must be removed. And so, too, must his entire team. https://t.co/17JHGtQzWY
— Fox News (@FoxNews) December 17, 2017
Yesterday, Fox reported that Kory Langhofer, lawyer for that august legal institution Trump for America, had sent a letter to Congress protesting "unlawful conduct" by the General Services Administration (GSA) and possible violations of privilege and the 4th Amendment by the Mueller team. He didn't elaborate on what privilege might have been violated or how the their 4th Amendment rights had been abridged. But, Fox News had their had their GOP marching orders, and they marched their worthless hearts out.
.@jessebwatters: "It's like the @FBI had Michael Moore investigating the President of the United States." @WattersWorldpic.twitter.com/BD7sEOstRq
— Fox News (@FoxNews) December 17, 2017
Oh, FFS! What had happened was, the Trump Administration installed Richard Beckler, a veteran of Rudy Giuliani's law firm, to head the GSA. With their guy in charge they assumed that whatever incriminating shit they said in their presidential transition team emails would stay hidden -- and you know damn well they probably all sent emails like, "Check out my sweet new government email, Oleg! We'll 86 those sanctions in no time! Peace out, bro." Because they are just that stupid.
Axios reports,
Trump officials discovered Mueller had the emails when his prosecutors used them as the basis for questions to witnesses, the sources said.The emails include 12 accounts, one of which contains about 7,000 emails, the sources said.
The accounts include the team's political leadership and the foreign-policy team, the sources said.
Buzzfeed published Langhofer's letter in full. He claims that Beckler verbally agreed in June that all the Trump Transition emails were the property of the Trump team and would not be disclosed without consulting with Trump's lawyers. Beckler died in August, so we'll never know about this supposed verbal agreement. Without a Trump crony heading up the GSA, Lenny Lowentritt, a career civil servant, took over the top job. And when the Mueller team came looking for those emails, Lowentritt consulted the terms of use for the ptt.gov domain. Buzzfeed reports,
"Beckler never made that commitment," he said of the claim that any requests for transition records would be routed to the Trump campaign's counsel.Specifically, 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."
Translation: "Yeah, no one reads the terms of service. But they still apply to you!" So Lowentritt handed over the whole cache to Mueller's team.
I was the Deputy GC of a Transition (Obama-Biden 08). I warned everyone: there is NO expectation of privacy in your transition emails. The clue: emails are "name@ptt.gov." The whining letter from the Trump Transition tacitly admits this: it ends by asking for a legislative fix https://t.co/RfBJPSMmlt
— Norm Eisen (@NormEisen) December 17, 2017
Hilariously, Langhofer claims both that the Trump team's rights were violated, AND that Congress needs to change the laws to protect future presidents from having their privacy rights violated. Which is moronic, but still good enough for Kellyanne.
.@KellyannePolls: "The fix was in against @realDonaldTrump from the beginning, and they were pro-Hillary... They can't possibly be seen as objective or transparent or even-handed or fair." pic.twitter.com/DZKKR0OOPo
— Fox News (@FoxNews) December 17, 2017
And Jeanine Pirro is ready to make a citizens arrest of Robert Mueller and throw him in email jail her own crazy self.
.@JudgeJeanine: "Members of the @FBI and @TheJusticeDept - some of whom actually ended up on Bob Mueller's team to prosecute @realDonaldTrump - did everything they could to exonerate @HillaryClinton for her crimes and incriminate @POTUS with a non-existent crime." pic.twitter.com/ZCgCsZEFkP
— Fox News (@FoxNews) December 17, 2017
Lunatics gonna loony, right?
Back at the grownup's table, Peter Carr, spokesman for the special counsel's office, issued a statement last night.
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.
Tough luck, Donny! You don't own the account. Sad!
FWIW, whenever I signed for a .mil or .gov account and a government blackberry, the paperwork gave instruction on the rules. Not only wasn’t it “private,” but I was expected to use it for all govt/military business so it could be archived. So what’s the issue?
— Mark Hertling (@MarkHertling) December 17, 2017
And before we finish here, we'd just like to point out the Mueller has had these emails the whole time. He's interviewed the entire Trump brain trust, asking hundreds of questions based on the transition emails, and it took them until now to figure it out. Was it White House counsel Don McGahn who finally had the Eureka! moment during his second interview this week? You know damn well it wasn't Kushner, who is probably congratulating himself for using his own server and is too dimwitted to realize that Mueller has the emails he sent to other members of the team.
In sum, this is all just more bullshit to try to discredit Mueller. People are panicking that Trump will try to kill the investigation by firing Mueller (or Rosenstein) over Christmas, and it is the opinion of Your Five Dollar Feminist that we need to be ready to TAKE TO THE STREETS if that happens. You can sign up here for alerts to protests in your area. Stay woke, Wonkers!
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[Fox / Buzzfeed / Langhofer Letter / Axios]
Liz Dye lives in Baltimore with her wonderful husband and a houseful of teenagers. When she isn't being mad about a thing on the internet, she's hiding in plain sight in the carpool line. She's the one wearing yoga pants glaring at her phone.