Steve Mnuchin says Russia probe 'should be over quickly' amid reports of bulk email get

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Sunday that special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election “should be over quickly.”

“We’ve got to get past this investigation. It’s a giant distraction. Nobody has said that in any way this impacted the outcome of the election,” Mnuchin said during an appearance on CNN’s ‘State of the Union.’

Mnuchin’s comment came after host Jake Tapper mentioned the reports that Mueller’s team had gotten access to “tens of thousands” of Trump’s transition team emails.

Kory Langhofer, a lawyer with the transition team known as Trump for America, has alleged that emails were obtained improperly.

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“The batch of emails totaling thousands of pages of communications was improperly provided to Mueller by the federal General Services Administration, the organization claimed in a letter delivered to congressional investigators,” according to the Washington Post.

In connection with the investigation, when Tapper asked if Trump’s going to fire Mueller, Mnuchin said, “I don’t have any reason to think the president is going to do that, but that’s obviously up to him.”

There was renewed speculation on Saturday about Trump firing Mueller after Democratic Representative Jackie Speier told KQED that there is a “rumor on the Hill” that the president might take such an action before Christmas.

White House Legislative Affairs Director Marc Short dismissed that possibility, telling NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ on Sunday, “There’s no conversation about that whatsoever in the White House.”

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