Why Mueller’s seizure of transition emails likely violated the law

[TalkRadio]

According to published reports, Special Counsel Robert Mueller engaged in a mass seizure of all emails of the Trump transition team without even a warrant or a subpoena. The questions boils down to this: was there a reason for the individuals communicating by email, including with their lawyers, to believe their communications were private or privileged? Or, did the individuals forever waive or “implicitly consent” to any future search or seizure of their emails?

The Supreme Court in 2010 “counsels caution” before too soon defining “the existence, and extent, of privacy expectations enjoyed by employees when using employer-provided communication devices” until popular use of the technology used was better developed socially. (City of Ontario, Cal. V. Quon, 560 U.S. 746 (2010). In other words, do most people expect privacy in that use of technology to communicate, or do they assume it is equivalent to talking in an open office where anyone from the public can walk by? The court made clear a government search was not reasonable if not “justified at its inception” or “excessively intrusive” or “not reasonably related to the objectives of the search.”

The Mueller search runs afoul of many of these established court precedents and Fourth Amendment privacy and privilege principles. First, it appears Mueller searched and seized every email, without any kind of categorical or keyword search. This is exactly the kind of search the Supreme Court made clear was not allowed under the Fourth Amendment. This means Mueller can only prevail if he didn’t seize a single email of a single individual that the individual could have any expectation of either personal privacy or attorney client privilege in.

https://lawandcrime.com/legal-analy...of-transition-emails-likely-violated-the-law/

 

[Rightguide]

I wonder if that happened before or after Peter Strzok was dismissed or if Andrew Weissmann was involved.

 

[Aglaopheme]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/frankm...-trumps-presidential-transition-teams-emails/

If anyone who was on President Donald J. Trump’s presidential transition team is surprised that Robert Mueller obtained tens of thousands of their emails by only sending a letter—with no warrant to back it up—to the General Services Administration (GSA), an independent agency of the U.S. government established in 1949 to support federal agencies, then they are naïve.

In this area especially, the Fourth Amendment has been shot full of loopholes.

When there is a “reasonable expectation of privacy” the Fourth Amendment does offer some protection against unreasonable searches and seizures—meaning the government would have to go to a judge to obtain a warrant based on probable cause.

But in a situation such as this, where a third party holds the records, courts have found there is no reasonable expectation of privacy.

In 2010, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, for example, ruled, in Rehberg v. Paulk, that a person does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy once any copy of the email is delivered to a third party—the GSA, in this case, is a third party.

But lawyers are paid to deal with the legal situation as it is, not just how it should ideally be. By going public with this fight, they are not only going to lose, but are going to look stupid losing.

 

[Hypoxia]

As the GSA head said, Team Tromp signed agreements recognizing that their communications were .GOV public data, with no expectation of privacy. Tromp's lawyers are now lying. Sad but expected.

 

[doowdniw]

But ,but, but, what about Hilary?

 

[TalkRadio]

Clinton campaign, DNC accused of 'corrupt' money scheme in new FEC complaint

But ,but, but, what about Hilary?

Hillary? Okay...

A new legal complaint filed with the Federal Election Commission alleges that the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee used state chapters as strawmen to circumvent campaign donation limits and laundered the money back to her campaign.

The Committee to Defend the President, a political action committee, filed its complaint with the FEC on Monday with the allegations that the Hillary Victory Fund (HVF) solicited cash from big-name donors, including Calvin Klein and “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane -- money that was allegedly sent through state chapters and back to the DNC before ending up with the Clinton campaign.

Officials with the committee said their filing was spurred by their own analysis of FEC reports, where they said they discovered the HVF either never transferred the money to state chapters and back to the DNC, or did so without the state chapters having actual control.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...orrupt-money-scheme-in-new-fec-complaint.html

 

[LiamAnthony]

I have a feeling Mueller's going to be violating Jared pretty soon.

 

[Colonel Hogan]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/frankm...-trumps-presidential-transition-teams-emails/

If anyone who was on President Donald J. Trump’s presidential transition team is surprised that Robert Mueller obtained tens of thousands of their emails by only sending a letter—with no warrant to back it up—to the General Services Administration (GSA), an independent agency of the U.S. government established in 1949 to support federal agencies, then they are naïve.

In this area especially, the Fourth Amendment has been shot full of loopholes.

When there is a “reasonable expectation of privacy” the Fourth Amendment does offer some protection against unreasonable searches and seizures—meaning the government would have to go to a judge to obtain a warrant based on probable cause.

But in a situation such as this, where a third party holds the records, courts have found there is no reasonable expectation of privacy.

In 2010, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, for example, ruled, in Rehberg v. Paulk, that a person does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy once any copy of the email is delivered to a third party—the GSA, in this case, is a third party.

But lawyers are paid to deal with the legal situation as it is, not just how it should ideally be. By going public with this fight, they are not only going to lose, but are going to look stupid losing.

You realize, I hope, that this is the same legal rationale by which the NSA was NOT spying on Americans when it collected and stored telephony metadata and is the same rationale by which the government is arguing in a current Supreme Court case this term that it is allowed to track your cell phone location by virtue of the registration information it constantly transmits when turned on -- rationales which I happen to fully support.

You, too?

 

[BobBalouski]

I recall fondly a pre-PATRIOT Act America where even "third party" small town librarians would tell FBI agents to take a hike when they came wanting private information on library patrons. And even if the agents had a subpoena, libraries were renowned for fighting it in court.

BTW: Mueller's team, in direct response to allegations it illegally obtained those "tens of thousands" of emails, specifically denied it:

"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 spokesman, Peter Carr, said early Sunday.

I can see Mteam considering the "the account owner's consent" being that of the GSA, since all the email accounts were hosted on its servers. But that still leaves legal discussion about whether the GSA should've demanded subpoenas from the FBI before handing over the emails.

However, Judge Napolitano, for one, insists that statement indicates the FBI did, in fact, render subpoenas onto the GSA which, if true, leaves no legal questions except as they may still pertain to the Presidential Transition Act of 1963. I'm not sure if the Judge actually knows that for a fact, or if he's just opining that because of the obvious high regard he holds Robert Mueller in:

Napolitano said the argument is dubious and that he's "appalled" by the allegation that Mueller did a "bad thing."

"He didn't," said the Fox News senior judicial analyst, explaining that a grand jury subpoena would have been needed to obtain the records from the GSA.

Napolitano described the process as "law school 101," saying the Trump team should have made a written agreement with the GSA to inform them of any subpoenas for documents before complying.

http://insider.foxnews.com/2017/12/...not-improperly-obtain-trump-transition-emails

Whether the Judge actually knows if subpoenas were delivered or not is one thing, but he does emphatically infer that not doing so would be a clear violation of law. So, the question remains: did Special Counsel Mueller obtain subpoenas for the "tens of thousands" of emails the GSA rendered unto the FBI? I cannot find any comment from Mteam, the FBI, or the GSA that unarguably confirms the existence of said subpoenas, which seems indicting itself because doing so would easily, instantly, and totally eliminate this latest, contentiously controversial issue.

 

[sr71plt]

The e-mail system was a government one. They were all told from the get go they were on a government system and the government had access to it all. If they didn't want that to be the result they should just not have used the system.

This is just another one of those fake excuses the Trump people use to keep his dumb supporters pacified with and misinformed by his lies. It apparently has worked with some posters here.

The two-faced nature of this is dazzling. Trump publicly inviting the Russians to hack and publish Hillary Clinton's e-mails but now complaining about the government using e-mails it owned from the get go.