monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

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"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 said.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-42382628

American liberals and other critics of Donald Trump have been beset for weeks now with a growing sense of dread that the president will fire Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Mueller, goaded into setting off a constitutional crisis by hyperventilating right-wing pundits and Republican members of Congress, all acting in bad faith.

These conservatives have seized on irrelevancies, like the fact that members of Mueller’s team donated to Democrats, and questionable concerns, like the fact that one of Mueller’s investigators appeared to hold Trump in deep disdain, to suggest the investigation is irreparably tainted by bias. (Note: Mueller is a Republican, FBI Director Chris Wray is a Republican, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is a Republican, and every prosecutor who investigated Bill Clinton was a Republican.)

Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) argued at a House Judiciary Committee hearing this week that the Mueller investigation might cause people to lose faith in the American justice system, and that we might “lose the Republic” as a result.

No matter how destructive of democracy it was, no matter how criminal it was, it was all justified because Trump had to be kept out of office by any means necessary.

It's useless to try to justify it on policy or moral grounds.

The past year of research has made it very clear: Trump won because of racial resentment
Another study produces the same findings we’ve seen over and over again.

But what was "destructive to democracy"? What was "criminal"?

if "Trump had to be kept out of office by any means necessary" why is he sitting there now? Pretty ineffective "deep state" if you ask me. Putin would not be impressed.

It's useless to try to justify it on policy or moral grounds.

And unnecessary since "it" — "their attempts to sabotage Trump's campaign"— never happened.

...Until recently, the Claremont Institute had been seen as an outlier in the conservative firmament. For decades, the guiding spirit of Claremont was a brilliant and querulous scholar named Harry Jaffa. In 1964, Jaffa, who had been Strauss’s first disciple at the New School for Social Research and had followed him to Chicago as a student, worked on Barry Goldwater’s presidential campaign as a speechwriter, and soon after joined Claremont McKenna College in California. There he cultivated what became known as “West Coast Straussians,” in opposition to “East Coast Straussians.”

His main antagonist was Allan Bloom at the University of Chicago, author of the 1987 best seller The Closing of the American Mind. A number of Bloom’s students went on to become prominent academics or government officials, including Paul Wolfowitz and Francis Fukuyama. Other East Coast Straussians include William Kristol, who studied with the conservative political philosopher Harvey C. Mansfield at Harvard, and Yuval Levin, the editor of National Affairs and the champion of the “reformicon” movement, which attempts to appeal to the middle class rather than focusing on tax cuts for the wealthy.

After Strauss’s death in 1973, the battle among his disciples over his true legacy erupted...

as though overturning the will of the voters by way of surreptitious illegal methods could not possibly be damaging to a democratic society

false information disseminated in an attempt to convince the public that Trump was a russian agent

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as though overturning the will of the voters by way of surreptitious illegal methods could not possibly be damaging to a democratic society

Are you saying that the "will of the voters" was overturned? How? Where? I thought Trump won fair and square.

GSA Deputy Counsel Lenny Loewentritt told Buzzfeed that Beckler didn't make a commitment to the transition team that requests from law enforcement for materials would be routed through transition lawyers.
Loewentritt said the transition was informed that by using government devices, the agency wouldn't hold back records from law enforcement.

Transition officials signed agreements that warn them that materials kept on the government servers are subject to monitoring and auditing, he told Buzzfeed, and there's no expectation of privacy.

If it had surfaced that the FBI and other intelligence agencies had concocted some illegal scheme to get Obama removed from office if he was elected, the cheese-eaters would still be screaming today.

But given that it happened to Trump, not Obama, it's all laudable and every available propaganda tool is being employed to justify it.

Last week, some muslim fanatic tried to blow up hundreds of people in a NYC subway.

If it had surfaced that the FBI and other intelligence agencies had concocted some illegal scheme to get Obama removed from office if he was elected, the cheese-eaters would still be screaming today.

Quote:

GSA Deputy Counsel Lenny Loewentritt told Buzzfeed that Beckler didn't make a commitment to the transition team that requests from law enforcement for materials would be routed through transition lawyers.
Loewentritt said the transition was informed that by using government devices, the agency wouldn't hold back records from law enforcement.

Transition officials signed agreements that warn them that materials kept on the government servers are subject to monitoring and auditing, he told Buzzfeed, and there's no expectation of privacy.

AP

Langhofer also said that a GSA official appointed by Trump in May had assured the transition in June that any request for records from Mueller's office would be referred to the transition's attorneys. According to Langhofer, the assurance was made by then-GSA General Counsel Richard Beckler...

The documents were provided to Mueller's team by the GSA in September in response to requests from the FBI, but the transition wasn't informed at the time, according to people familiar with the transition organization. Officials with Trump for America learned last Wednesday that GSA officials had turned over the cache of emails to Mueller's team.

The investigators did not directly request the records from Trump's still-existing transition group, Trump for America, and instead obtained them from the General Services Administration, a separate federal agency that stored the material, according to those familiar with the Trump transition organization.

The tens of thousands of emails in question pertain to 13 senior Trump transition officials. Many of the emails that Mueller's investigators have now include national security discussions about possible Trump international aims as well as candid assessments of candidates for top government posts, said those familiar with the transition.