Is Special Counsel Robert Mueller Deliberately Precipitating a Constitutional Crisis?

THE REAL NEWS TODAY IS THE CORRUPTION, CORRUPTION and CORRUPTION THAT SURROUNDS MUELLER AND THE PROGDEMS. Their corruption was not really in question, but we are learning more and more about how their corruption spilled over into the FBI, CIA and DOJ. It was an era filled with the politization of every piece of the Executive Branch of gove'rnment, and it has raised gigntic issues about just how much longer Congress and the Supreme Court can stay aloof, pretending that this is just another pecials counsel doing "his job." • • • MUELLER SMASHES THE CONSTITUTIONAL BASELINE OF SEPARATION OF POWERS. Fox News on Saturday dropped the latest bombshell on the idea that Rober Mueller and his team are independent, let alone objective. Fox reporters John Roberts and Alex Pappas revealed that : " A lawyer for the Trump presidential transition team is accusing Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office of inappropriately obtaining transition documents as part of its Russia probe, including confidential attorney-client communications and privileged communications. A lawyer for the Trump presidential transition team is accusing Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office of inappropriately obtaining transition documents as part of its Russia probe, including confidential attorney-client communications and privileged communications and thousands of emails without their knowledge." Trump's lawyer wrote a letter obtained by Fox News that was sent to House and Senate committees on Saturday. In the letter, the transition team’s attorney alleges “unlawful conduct” by the career staff at the General Services Administration (GSA) in handing over transition documents to the special counsel’s office. Kory Langhofer, the counsel to Trump for America (TFA), argues the GSA “did not own or control the records in question” and the release of documents could be a violation of the Fourth Amendment – which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures. Fox reports that Langhofer wrote in Saturday's letter that the GSA handed over “tens of thousands of emails” to Mueller's probe without "any notice" to the transition : "The attorney said they discovered the 'unauthorized disclosures' by the GSA on December 12 and 13 and raised concerns with the special counsel’s office. The Associated Press reported that the GSA turned over a flash drive containing tens of thousands of records on September 1 after receiving requests from Mueller's office in late August. The AP said those records "included emails sent and received by 13 senior Trump transition officials. Among the officials who used transition email accounts was former national security advisor Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to a count of making false statements to FBI agents in January and is now cooperating with Mueller's investigation. 'We understand that the special counsel’s office has subsequently made extensive use of the materials it obtained from the GSA, including materials that are susceptible to privilege claims,' Langhofer wrote. He added that some of the records obtained by the special counsel’s office from the GSA “have been leaked to the press by unknown persons.' The transition attorney said the special counsel's office also received laptops, cell phones and at least one iPad from the GSA." • Trump for America is the nonprofit organization that facilitated the transition between former President Barack Obama to President Trump. The GSA, an agency of the United States government, provided the transition team with office space and hosted its email servers. Peter Carr, spokesman for Mueller's special counsel office, told Fox : “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." But, in an interview with BuzzFeed News Saturday evening, GSA Deputy Counsel Lenny Loewentritt denied Trump attorney Langhofer's claim that then-GSA General Counsel Richard Beckler had promised that any requests for transition team records would be "routed to legal counsel for [Trump for America]." Loewentritt said : "Beckler never made that commitment," adding that transition team members were warned that information "would not be held back in any law enforcement" investigation and that "no expectation of privacy can be assumed." (Longhofer's letter notes that Beckler "was hospitalized and incapacitated in August." He died the following month.) Loewentritt also told BuzzFeed that the GSA suggested that Mueller's team issue a warrant or subpoena for the transition team materials, but the special prosecutor's office decided a letter requesting the materials would suffice. In his letter, Langhofer argued the GSA's actions “impair the ability of future presidential transition teams to candidly discuss policy and internal matters that benefit the country as a whole." Langhofer requested in the letter 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.” The letter was sent to the Senate Homeland Security and House Oversight Committees. • • • SEPARATION OF POWERS AND EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE. The political doctrine of constitutional law under which the three branches of government (executive, legislative, and judicial) are kept separate is meant to prevent abuse of power by its concentration in one of the three branches. It is also known as the system of checks and balances, with each branch being given certain powers so as to check and balance the other branches. Executive privilege is the constitutional principle that permits the President and high-level executive branch officers to withhold information from Congress, the courts, and ultimately the public. The executive branch of the United States Government can use executive privilege to resist certain subpoenas and other interventions by the legislative and judicial branches of government in pursuit of information or personnel relating to the executive. This presidential power is implied because it is not mentioned in the US Constitution. But, Presidents have since George Washington argued that executive privilege is a principle implied in the constitutionally mandated separation of powers. In order to do their job, Presidents contend, they need candid advice from their aides -- and aides simply won't be willing to give such advice if they know they might be called to testify, under oath, before a congressional committee or in some other forum.Thus, a subpoena by Congress cannot override claims of executive privilege. However, the privilege is considered "qualified" and "not absolute," meaning it can be challenged and overturned in the courts. in its ruling against President Nixon in the Watergate tapes case, the Supreme Court noted "the valid need for protection of communications between high government officials and those who advise and assist them in the performance of their manifold duties." In other words, while rejecting Nixon's particular claim of executive privilege, the Supreme Court left the door open for future claims by future Presidents. • • • ARE WE HEADED TO THE SUPREME COURT OVER MUELLER'S ILLEGAL SEIZURE? American Thinker's Rick Moran wrote on Sunday that : "The Trump lawyer raised the 4th Amendment, but that won't fly since the information is on government servers and in government possession. This is somewhat similar to the issue Gorsuch raised in the Carpenter cell phone information case, but that information was in private corporate possession, not government possession. Conservative outlets and social media were yelling foul. A problem here is that the independent counsel law can be interpreted to allow pursuit into more than the initial matter being investigated if the independent counsel believes there is something to pursue. Very clever move by Mueller. Even the privileged legal communications may not be protected from him since they are stored with the GSA, although that may need to be resolved in court." • Trump attorney Langhofer wrote in the letter to Congress that the special counsel's Office "was actively using those materials without any notice" to transition officials. The letter states there were two other occasions where the special counsel's office did not notify transition officials that their records had been requested or received. The letter also states that special counsel's office had obtained transition laptops, cell phones and at least one iPad after the FBI requested them of career GSA staff without a subpoena. It also says a representative of the special counsel's office told transition officials it did not recover any documents from that hardware, but failed to disclose to transition officials "the critical fact that...the special counsel's office had simultaneously received from the GSA tens of thousands of emails....The materials produced by the GSA to the special counsel's office therefore included materials protected by the attorney-client privilege, the deliberative process privilege, and the presidential communications privilege," the letter states. • American Thinker asks why Mueller is "investigating the post-election activities of Trump's transition team" -- the activities contained within those emails "are extremely sensitive communications about personnel and other details that should be irrelevant to Mueller's collusion investigation. Why is he investigating how the Trump White House was formed and developed?" Then, says American Thinker, there is this : "The sources say that transition officials assumed that Mueller would come calling, and had sifted through the emails and separated the ones they considered privileged. But the sources said that was for naught, since Mueller has the complete cache from the dozen accounts." • The implications are serious. The situation now has the potential to escalate into a separation of powers and executive privilege legal battle that will drag on, while the appearances of impropriety by the special counsel’s office builds toward a conviction of imbedded Deep State and ProgDem corruption for at least half the country. Once again, we have an example of how Mueller is going beyond his mandate and investigating post-election politics and political decisions of an incoming administration. Perhaps this is why rumors started swirling on Capitol Hill that Mueller would be fired." • • • DEAR READERS, a special counsel can do just about anything he wants to -- that's the whole point of creating the office in the first place. His legal powers are extraordinary. But Trump's transition officials seemed then, and continue to seem, perfectly willing to cooperate with Mueller -- President Trump said again on Sunday that he has no intention of firing Mueller -- but, it is difficult to actively cooperate with Mueller while Trump and his team are being blindsided and kept in the dark by a special counsel who is not even following the general ethical canons of the legal profession. Mueller is seizing what the Trump lawyers believe to be privileged communications -- communications that, by definition, have nothing to do with Mueller's investigation of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. It is becoming more and more obvious that Mueller is finding the collusion angle an empty well and is casting his net to find something -- anything -- he can charge the President and his people with. Maybe Mueller believes he can find illegality by Trump transition officials and then "flip" them to give up what they know about Russia and collusion. If that's the case, it is a sign of desperation on Mueller's part. Democrats are perfectly happy to support an out of control special counsel but Trump and the Republicans are going to start pushing back. A showdown is coming that almost certainly will not end well for Robert Mueller. A 5-4 conservative Supreme Court is not going to find the extra-legal antics of a leftist special counsel in tune with the Constitution and its requirements of separation of powers and checks and balances, and their implied executive privilege that lets a President get good advice before choosing a course of action without having ot worry that the advice not taken will lead to congressional investigations and lawsuits. If a constitutional crisis is looming, it is Robert Mueller who will have precipitated it. Is this a deliberate ploy on the part of the Progressive Deep State in their spiteful effort to destroy Donald Trump's presidency, while taking down the Constitution as well?