More on the FBI, Trump, and Russia

[Fly320s]

This keeps getting gooder and gooderer.

https://mobile.twitter.com/TheLastRefuge2/status/941585613089857536

[just Warren]

Is there a possibility that this is all some sort of honey trap that Trump is running to catch out all manner of Obama holdovers in compromising positions that may well lead to indictments?

[French G.]

Is there a possibility that this is all some sort of honey trap that Trump is running to catch out all manner of Obama holdovers in compromising positions that may well lead to indictments?

Occam's really dull razor of stupidity. These people really think that they run this country and can act as they see fit. It is a lucky accident some have been exposed, but they may be right, many will slither back under their rock and continue to run the country.

[French G.]

Collusion proved! Trump's CIA foils Russian terror plot, Putin thanks Trump in bromancy phone call.

[Hawkmoon]

Here's a fairly well reasoned (at least, it appears so to my layman's understanding) article spelling out why Mueller's grab of all the transition e-mails from the GSA was illegal. If this is correct, then Mueller's team shot themselves in the foot, because this could essentially (if I understand it correctly -- which I probably don't) render the entire trove "fruits of a poisoned tree."

https://lawandcrime.com/legal-analysis/legal-analysis-heres-why-muellers-seizure-of-transition-emails-likely-violated-the-law/

Mueller’s problem here is these were not even government employee emails; they were the emails of private individuals stored temporarily on a government server, and publicly declared to be “private materials” as a matter of custom, practice and the public policy of the National Archives. As Professor Jonathan Turley identifies, the National Archives recognize transition email records “are not federal or presidential records, but considered private materials.”

Would any of our legal eagle types care to comment?

[230RN]

Not a legal eagle, but I would take issue with Turley's (or anyone's) position that "private" stuff stored on a government server, temporarily or not, is truly "private."  It is no longer private in the sense that it can't be evidentiary, in my non-legal opinion.

This is completely apart from the constitutional provision that search warrants must describe in particular the things to be searched for. It is not like developing a search warrant for an external entity --it is the government's own property in the first place.

I am sure that legal eagles could make a "debating team"-type  case that it is private, using obscure case law and "rules of evidence" precedents, but that would be another situation where The Law demonstrates itself to be an ass.

Which, itself, is not uncommon.

Terry, 230RN

[Scout26]

There should be some expectation of privacy, those emails probably dealt with personnel appointments and other policies.

[dogmush]

See attachment below.

That's the banner you have to click through to log in to one of the U.S. Government e-mail servers (disa in this case)  They make it pretty clear that they feel like they can take any e-mails.  You'd have to be pretty illiterate to think that any e-mails you stored on that server were still private*.

It's possible that folks that send stuff from the outside to my e-mail aren't aware that their communications are now the government's for all time.  I haven't done a lot of searching but if the transition team were accessing their e-mails on a .gov server, I'd bet a lot that they clicked through some version of the banner below.

*That banner is, I remain convinced, the real reason Hillary set up a private server and refused to use .gov e-mail for State Department business.

[Hawkmoon]

See last bullet point:

Notwithstanding the above, using this IS does not constitute consent to PM, LE or CI investigative searching or monitoring of the content of privileged communications, or work product, related to personal repreentation or services by attorneys, psychotherapists, or clergy and their assistants. Such communications and work product are private and confidential. See Use Agreement for details.

[dogmush]

Unless they grabbed emails from Trump's lawyer, therapist, or priest the last bullet does not apply.

And even then it only applies to e-mails about their respective fields.

[Hawkmoon]

The point being that they need a court order to read any such e-mails, and the way they got them didn't offer anyone a chance to screen those out so Mueller's team got everything. Which he's not entitled to do.

[just Warren]

Well he didn't mean to break the law....

[DittoHead]

Seems to me like Trump might have a legitimate beef with the GSA for handing over all those emails (possibly some protected) but it seems like wishful thinking that this is going to be a big problem for Mueller. He was well within his rights to request records relevant to the investigation and if he gets more than that without any push back it's not really his fault.

Besides, the transition team has nothing to hide I'm sure. 

[Jocassee]

There should be some expectation of privacy, those emails probably dealt with personnel appointments and other policies.

Yoga lesson, daughter's weddings...the usual.