A top federal prosecutor who is now a deputy in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation praised then-acting Attorney General Sally Yates after she was fired in January by President Donald Trump for refusing to defend his travel ban.
In a Jan. 30 email obtained by Judicial Watch through a federal lawsuit, prosecutor Andrew Weissmann wrote to Yates under the subject line, "I am so proud," Fox News reported.
"And in awe. Thank you so much. All my deepest respects," the content of the email read, referring to Yates' refusal to defend the first version of Trump's travel ban on seven majority-Muslim countries.
The email was sent from Weissmann’s government account before he was assigned to Mueller’s Russia probe and was still working in the DOJ’s criminal division.
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said the new Weissmann email is an "astonishing and disturbing find."
The email's release comes after it was recently confirmed another Mueller investigator, FBI official Peter Strzok, was removed from the investigation over the summer after sending anti-Trump texts to an FBI lawyer he was romantically involved with.
The allegations against Strzok brought up old concerns about the objectivity of the FBI, especially in the probes of Hillary Clinton’s emails and Russian election meddling.
"Andrew Weisman (sic), a key prosecutor on Robert Mueller’s team, praised Obama DOJ holdover Sally Yates after she lawlessly thwarted President Trump," Fitton said in a statement. "How much more evidence do we need that the Mueller operation has been irredeemably compromised by anti-Trump partisans?"