“When we learned that the Special Counsel’s Office had received certain laptops and cell phones containing privileged materials, we initially raised our concerns with Brandon Van Grack in the Special Counsel’s Office on December 12, 2017.” Kory Langhofer, counsel to Trump for America, Inc., Letter to Congressional Committees, Dec. 16, 2017 — letter’s account, not a court finding
Fact On December 16, 2017, Kory Langhofer, managing attorney at Statecraft PLLC and counsel to Trump for America, Inc. (“TFA,” also called the Presidential Transition Team or “PTT”), sent a letter to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The letter names Brandon Van Grack of the Special Counsel’s Office. That naming is on the page. It is not a criminal conviction and not a judicial finding of misconduct.
Allegation The letter’s account of what happened next is TFA counsel’s claim. Langhofer wrote that after “unauthorized disclosures by the GSA” discovered on December 12 and 13, 2017, counsel raised concerns with Van Grack on December 12. Per the letter: Van Grack confirmed SCO had obtained certain laptops, cell phones, and at least one iPad from the GSA, but said the investigation did not recover emails or other relevant data from that hardware; he “failed to disclose” that SCO had “simultaneously received from the GSA tens of thousands of emails, including a very significant volume of privileged material,” and was “actively using those materials without any notice to TFA”; he declined to identify the 13 individuals whose materials were at issue; on December 15 he said SCO had “failed to use an ‘ethical wall’ or ‘taint team’” and had reviewed privileged communications in the PTT materials. Those are allegations in a partisan transition counsel letter. Read them as such. Do not rewrite them as proven court findings against Van Grack.
Key lines from the same paragraph (transcription of the user-marked page; matches the public PDF):
- “Mr. Van Grack confirmed that the Special Counsel’s Office had obtained certain laptops, cell phones, and at least one iPad from the GSA — but he assured us that the Special Counsel’s investigation did not recover any emails or other relevant data from that hardware.”
- “During this exchange, Mr. Van Grack failed to disclose the critical fact that undercut the importance of his representations, namely, that the Special Counsel’s Office had simultaneously received from the GSA tens of thousands of emails, including a very significant volume of privileged material, and that the Special Counsel’s Office was actively using those materials without any notice to TFA.”
- “Mr. Van Grack also declined to inform us of the identities of the 13 individuals whose materials were at issue.”
- “Mr. Van Grack declined to respond at the time, but contacted us on December 15, 2017 to inform us that the Special Counsel’s Office had, in fact, failed to use an ‘ethical wall’ or ‘taint team’ and instead simply reviewed the privileged communications contained in the PTT materials.”
Politico, Axios, and CNN circulated the letter the same weekend. The primary PDF is on DocumentCloud (and mirrored by Axios and CNN). This site’s hero image is a user-provided photograph of that page with Van Grack underlined in red on purpose.