First, this USA TODAY story (May 25, 2021) relates to the story that
follows with this short introduction:
“The Biden Justice Department is appealing an order to
release the full contents of a 2019 memorandum that recommended
President Donald J. Trump not be charged with obstructing special counsel
Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.”
My Notes: The above USA TODAY story follows up on the USA TODAY
story that follows.
There may be some duplication
in both articles, but that does not change the story only the two publication dates
– the contents and subject remains the same – but in different formats.
The second USA Today
article (May 5, 2021) has
more background on the same story with this background headline:
“Judge rebukes AG William
Barr for Mueller handling, orders DOJ to release Trump obstruction memo”
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson ordered the release
of a 2019 legal memorandum to a government accountability group, ruling the
document prepared for then-AG William Barr as he considered his
decision did not qualify as
protected attorney-client communications.
In the ruling, Judge Jackson characterized the memo as a “strategic document,” asserting that DOJ officials had come to a predetermined conclusion that Trump would not be charged with obstruction of justice.
Judge Jackson said in
her ruling: “In other words, the review of the document reveals that the
Attorney General was not then engaged in making a decision about whether the
President should be charged with obstruction of justice; the fact that he would
not be prosecuted was a given.”
The memo had been requested by the Citizens for
Responsibility and Ethics (CREW) a watchdog group in Washington, DC and
filed under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
Related to Mueller’s finding of obstruction (from The Conversation).
Recall that the original
Mueller Russian Investigation found no direct evidence that Trump
conspired with Russia, but it left open the question of obstruction of justice.
Jackson aimed her scathing
criticism at Barr for his handling of that Mueller report,
citing his decision to issue a brief short summary (his 4-page summary)
of its findings only days after receiving the voluminous 448-page Mueller report.
The key to the Mueller findings is that Mueller followed the DOJ rules
and memo about not being able to indict a sitting president with, but with this
powerful statement: “While this report does not conclude that the President
committed an obstruction crime, it also does not exonerate him.”
Judge Jackson further
wrote in an exceedingly rare admonishment of an AG and the DOJ referring to a
2019 letter Mueller wrote to Barr saying in part: “The Attorney General’s
characterization of what he’d hardly had time to skim, much less, study
closely, prompted an immediate reaction, as politicians and pundits took to
their microphones and Twitter feeds to decry what they feared was an attempt to
hide the ball. Even the customarily taciturn Special Counsel was moved to pen
an extraordinary public rebuke on March 27.”
* Mueller said this about the Barr short summary: “It did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this Office’s work and conclusions. There is now public confusion about critical aspects of our investigation. This threatens to undermine the central purpose for which the DOJ appointed the Special Counsel: To assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigations.”
Note: The decision by Barr and senior DOJ leaders to clear the
former president of obstruction prompted Trump to declare that he had been
vindicated even though Mueller had not made such a declaration (e.g., his “happy
feet dancing and public statements).
What the CREW FOIA requested: The public records
request seeks communications about the obstruction decision after Barr said
that he and other senior officials had reached that conclusion in consultation
with the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), which provides legal opinions to
executive branch agencies.
* Judge Jackson ruled that
one of the documents requested by the OLC was described by a DOJ official as an
“untitled, undated draft legal analysis”
that was submitted to the AG as part of his decision-making, and that is was
properly withheld from the group (CREW).
Judge Jackson now has ordered the release of the draft memo,
which concluded that the evidence assembled by Mueller's team would not
support an obstruction prosecution of Trump.
*This is what Mueller strongly
disagreed with in his letter to Barr.
A spokesperson for Barr did not immediately respond to an
inquiry.
The DOJ has until May 17 to challenge the ruling, or to
fully comply.
My 2 cents: This whole affair stinks to high heaven and even thought Trump and Barr, et al are now out of office, they must somehow be held accountable for duping the public for so long on the Mueller report by presenting false and/or misleading information.
Thank goodness Judge Jackson now seeks to hold them accountable.
Thanks for stopping by.
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