In the memo from a transition lawyer, Trump campaign officials were told to preserve all documents related to the Russian Federation, Ukraine and a number of campaign advisers and officials. | Getty Trump transition officials ordered to save Russia documents The request sheds further light on the scope of the probe.

Aides and volunteers on Donald Trump’s presidential transition were instructed Thursday to save any records related to “several pending investigations into potential attempts by Russia interests to influence the 2016 election,” according to a memo obtained by POLITICO.

In the memo from a transition lawyer, campaign officials were told to preserve all documents related to the Russian Federation, Ukraine and a number of campaign advisers and officials, including former campaign manager Paul Manafort, advisers Carter Page, Rick Gates and Roger Stone, and former national security adviser Gen. Michael Flynn.


The individuals cited were not immediately available for comment. None has been formally accused of any wrongdoing.

“In order to assist these investigations, the Presidential Transition Team and its current and former personnel have a responsibility to ensure that, to the extent potentially relevant documents exist, they are properly preserved,” the memo stated.

The memo came from Kory Langhofer of an Arizona law firm called Statecraft. Langhofer confirmed he wrote the memo but declined to comment. Langhofer represented the Trump campaign and the Nevada Republican Party during the 2016 campaign, including on a voter intimidation lawsuit brought by Democrats just days before the election claiming Trump and Stone’s group, Stop the Steal, were planning to harass voters at the polls. A federal district court in Arizona dismissed the Democrat-driven case.

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Langhofer also was previously a lawyer on Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign and Carly Fiorina’s 2016 presidential bid.

The document request, while not unexpected, sheds further light on the scope of the probe and what lawyers have been asked for – or expect to be asked for – as FBI Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the Senate and House of Representatives expand their investigations.

The request – dated Thursday – also told aides and volunteers on the transition to save all foreign travel records.

The records included “emails, voicemails, text messages, instant messages, social media posts, Word or WordPerfect documents, spreadsheets, databases, telephone logs, audio recordings, videos, photographs or images, information contained on desktops, laptops, tablet computers, smartphones or other portable devices, calendar records and diary data.”

The memo warned that “failure to follow these protocols could result in criminal or civil penalties, and could form the basis of legal claims, legal presumptions, or jury instructions relating to spoliation of evidence.”

Trump has labeled the multiple ongoing investigations into his campaign a "witch hunt" and has loudly denied any allegation that there was collusion between his team and the Kremlin.

And while it has long been the consensus view of all 17 federal intelligence agencies that Russia was indeed to blame for the campaign of cyberattacks that largely targeted Democrats during last year's election, Trump lagged well behind in conceding that point, positing for months that the hack could also have come from China or a lone-wolf attacker. The president waited until just days before his inauguration to finally fall in line with the intelligence community and identify Russia as the culprit.

Investigations into Russian efforts to interfere in the election were initially contained to House and Senate committees as well as the FBI, and it was the probe conducted by the latter that Trump said was weighing on his mind when he made the surprise decision to fire bureau Director James Comey. Shortly after Comey's dismissal, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein — overseeing the Russia issue for the Justice Department because Attorney General Jeff Sessions had recused himself from it — announced that he would appoint Mueller as a special prosecutor to handle the Russia investigation.

Flynn, the former national security adviser who was fired by Trump just weeks after his inauguration, has also been the subject of some scrutiny by the FBI, an investigation that Comey testified to Congress last week is separate but related to the ongoing Russia probe. The former FBI director has said that Trump asked him during a private meeting to end the bureau's investigation into Flynn and his ties to foreign governments, an allegation that has prompted accusations that the president committed obstruction of justice.

Trump has denied that the conversations Comey described ever occurred and has hinted that he may have recordings of those interactions that would vindicate him, although he has not outright confirmed their existence. Comey, at his testimony last week, expressed hope that recordings do indeed exist and that they are released.

Louis Nelson and Darren Samuelsohn contributed to this report.

