October 23,2020

Senate HSGAC, Finance Majority Staff Report: GSA and FBI Undermined Presidential Transition Process by Secretly Sharing Private Trump Transition Records with Special Counsel

Special Counsel Received Access to Transition Records for Mike Pompeo, Jared Kushner, Reince Priebus, and K.T. McFarland, Among Others

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senators Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, released a majority staff report detailing how the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Office (Special Counsel) secretly sought and received access to the private records of Donald J. Trump’s presidential transition team, Trump for America, Inc., despite an agreement between the Trump transition team and the General Services Administration (GSA) that those records were the transition team’s private property that would not be retained at the conclusion of the transition.
 
Even after the Trump transition team learned about the FBI’s secret preservation request, the GSA nevertheless refused to immediately provide the Trump transition team copies of its own records. Instead, after denying the Trump transition team its basic legal rights to control its own information, including the opportunity to protect privileged or confidential information, the GSA turned over records for current and former administration officials to the Special Counsel without requiring any legal process, such as a subpoena or warrant.
 

A copy of the full report is available here. 

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