Sen. Ron Johnson, chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, on Monday asked the General Services Administration turn over more information about how special counsel Robert Mueller obtained the Trump transition team’s communications.
Kory Langhofer, a lawyer for Trump for America, has accused Mueller of illegally and unconstitutionally obtaining thousands of emails written during the transition between Election Day 2016 and Inauguration Day 2017 from the GSA.
Over the weekend, Langhofer wrote to both the Senate Homeland Security and House Oversight committees, requesting that Congress “act immediately to protect future presidential transitions from having their private records misappropriated by government agencies, particularly in the context of sensitive investigations intersecting with political motives.”
According to Langhofer, the GSA handed over “tens of thousands of emails” to Mueller’s team without “any notice” to the transition team.
Johnson, R-Wis., is now asking GSA Administrator Emily Murphy to reveal if the agency has taken any steps to determine if it was appropriate to provide the communications to Mueller. Johnson asked for the name of the GSA staffer who authorized the release of the documents to the special counsel.
“GSA’s alleged actions could have serious ramifications for presidential transitions in the future,” Johnson wrote in the Tuesday letter. “An incoming administration must be ready to govern on Day 1. Any threat to the close coordination between the transition and outgoing administration could create vulnerabilities to governance, readiness and national security.”
According to Johnson, the GSA does not have “authority” over the transition team’s “operations, it’s employees or its records," and that the agency “acts merely as a facilitator of office space, supplies and services.”
“The National Archives and Records Administration considers records of the presidential transition team to be private records – not federal or presidential records," Johnson said. "GSA does not have authority over the transition’s operations, its employees or its records.”
The GSA has pushed back against its actions, as has Mueller’s team.
GSA Deputy Counsel Lenny Loewentritt told BuzzFeed News Saturday evening that then-GSA General Counsel Richard Beckler had ever promised the transition team that requests for records would be “routed to legal counsel for [Trump for America]," as Langhofer claimed in his letter to Congress.
"Beckler never made that commitment," said Loewentritt, who added that the transition team was warned that information "would not be held back in any law enforcement" probe and that "no expectation of privacy can be assumed."
“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,” Peter Carr, spokesman for the special counsel’s office, told Fox News Sunday.
A GSA spokesperson did not return a Washington Examiner request for comment Tuesday.
