The Russia Investigations and other Trump-related cases

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Voronwë the Faithful
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Re: The Russia Investigations and other Trump-related cases

Post by Voronwë the Faithful »

And Fox's lead legal correspondent, Judge Andrew Napolitano, flat out states that Mr. Trump is guilty of obstruction of justice.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/judge-a ... ct-justice

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Re: The Russia Investigations and other Trump-related cases

Post by Voronwë the Faithful »

Wow!

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/04/specia ... er-report/

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Re: The Russia Investigations and other Trump-related cases

Post by River »

So remember a couple weeks ago when the WaPo dutifully reported that people on Mueller's team had told sources in the DoJ that they were not happy with how Barr was handling things? The story itself was nothing. But the fact it even happened was a Message. And apparently either the Message was not received or the messenger(s) found the response lacking.
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Re: The Russia Investigations and other Trump-related cases

Post by Cerin »

The wording of the Mueller letter is pretty mild:

“The summary letter . . . did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this office’s work and conclusions . . .”

Could a summary letter be expected to fully capture the context, nature and substance of a hundreds-page report? And would not there inevitably be differences in various people's views of the report depending on what political lens they are looking through?

Has Mueller been scheduled to testify before Congress? Has this already happened?
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Re: The Russia Investigations and other Trump-related cases

Post by Voronwë the Faithful »

For Mueller, and under these circumstances that is not mild. It is a bombshell.

As for whether Mueller is scheduled to testimony, apparently (and not very surprisingly) despite his willingness to do so, and Congress's desire to have him do so, and Barr's repeated statements that he has no objections to him doing so, the Justice Department has been putting up obstacles.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/robert-mu ... it-up-dems
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Re: The Russia Investigations and other Trump-related cases

Post by Cerin »

According to Barr's testimony of his conversation with Mueller after the letter, it was not a bombshell. Mueller did not fault the accuracy of Barr's representation of the report's findings, he just wanted more information out there to quell the confusion about why he had declined to reach a conclusion on obstruction.
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Re: The Russia Investigations and other Trump-related cases

Post by Voronwë the Faithful »

Here is the full text of the letter:
U.S. Department of Justice
The Special Counsel's Office
Washington, D. C. 20530


The Honorable William P. Barr
Attorney General of the United States
Department of Justice
Washington, D.C.


March 27, 2019

Re: Report of the Special Counsel on the Investigation Into Russian Interference in the
2016 Presidential Election and Obstruction of Justice (March 2019)

Dear Attorney General Barr:

I previously sent you a letter dated March 25, 2019, that enclosed the introduction and executive summary for each volume of the Special Counsel's report marked with redactions to remove any information that potentially could be protected by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e); that concerned declination decisions; or that related to a charged case. We also had marked an additional two sentences for review and have now confirmed that these sentences can be released publicly.

Accordingly, the enclosed documents are in a form that can be released to the public consistent with legal requirements and Department policies. I am requesting that you provide these materials to Congress and authorize their public release at this time.

As we stated in our meeting of March 5 and reiterated to the Department early in the afternoon of March 24, the introductions and executive summaries of our two-volume report accurately summarize this Office's work and conclusions. The summary letter the Department sent to Congress and released to the public late in the afternoon of March 24 did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this Office's work and conclusions. We communicated that concern to the Department on the morning of March 25. There is now public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation. This threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the Department appointed the Special Counsel: to assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigations. See Department of Justice, Press Release (May 17, 2017).

While we understand that the Department is reviewing the full report to determine what is appropriate for public release-a process that our Office is working with you to complete- that process need not delay release of the enclosed materials. Release at this time would alleviate the misunderstandings that have arisen and would answer congressional and public questions about the nature and outcome of our investigation. It would also accord with the standard for public release of notifications to Congress cited in your letter. See 28 C.F.R. § 609(c) ("the Attorney General may determine that public release" of congressional notifications "would be in the public interest").

Sincerely yours,
Robert S. Mueller III
Special Counsel
Enclosures
Despite the attempts of Barr and others to spin this, that is an extraordinary document.
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Re: The Russia Investigations and other Trump-related cases

Post by Cerin »

Voronwë, that letter supports Barr's testimony of this morning. Basically, Mueller was trying to dictate to Barr how the report should be released, and was unhappy that Barr hadn't followed his suggestions. But releasing the report wasn't up to Mueller; that was Barr's responsibility, and he explained this morning why he was not inclined to release the summaries. One may disagree with his decision, but not with the fact that it was his decision to make.

I can really relate to Barr; he actually reminds me of me and my history on the Tolkien boards of being misunderstood because I am so specific about the meanings of words and tend to focus narrowly rather than broadly. There have been several people over the years (and probably more than I know) who have considered me dishonest because they thought in broader terms and couldn't accept that a person could honestly be making such fine distinctions. There were a couple of Senators this morning who were unable to make the distinctions Barr was making and concluded as a result that he was being dishonest.
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Re: The Russia Investigations and other Trump-related cases

Post by Voronwë the Faithful »

I certainly do not think - or ever thought - that you are dishonest. Quite the contrary. Beyond that, I don't think I have anything more to say.
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Re: The Russia Investigations and other Trump-related cases

Post by Cerin »

I'm wondering why the House committee has added extraordinary conditions to their scheduled hearing, giving Barr a reason to decline to appear. Do you think it's a tit for tat effort based on the fact that the Senate Judiciary Committee had a legal counsel present to question Kavanaugh's accuser? But I think in that case, the Senators were trying to get out of what was seen as a tricky and unpleasant job themselves (not wanting to appear rough on her), whereas I would think these House members would be chomping at the bit to question Barr rather than asking the Republican and Democratic legal counsels to do it. I hardly think, after today, that they would be worried about seeming to be too hard on him.

I also wonder why House Democrats are continuing to insist on having the unredacted report. Do they really think some vital tidbit is buried in the redactions? I think it was said at the hearing today that in one section of the report, there were less than 1% redactions, and the redactions in the other were mostly about the ongoing investigations.
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Re: The Russia Investigations and other Trump-related cases

Post by Voronwë the Faithful »

Having the committee attorneys (for both parties) conduct additional questioning after the members of the committee ask their quesitions is unusual, but certainly not extraordinary*. It has been done in similar situations in (for instance) the Iran-Contra hearings. And the reason they want to do it is the same reason that Mr. Barr doesn't want them to; the attorneys are best situated to ask incisive follow-up questions.

* It is not nearly as unusual as was the GOP having an outside prosecutor do all of their questioning of Dr. Ford at the Kavanaugh hearing, which was unheard of.

As for why they want the unredacted version of the report, it is so that they can see whether there is any additional pertinent information that they need to know in order to do their job, which is to provide oversight of the executive branch. Depending on how it is calculated, the redactions make up between 7% and 14% of the total report, not an insignificant amount. However, I doubt that they are going to be successful in getting the portions that are redacted because they are grand jury material unless and until they begin impeachment proceedings, as I have said before.
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Re: The Russia Investigations and other Trump-related cases

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The House Judiciary Committee is apparently now talking directly with Mueller about him testifying rather than going through the Justice Department.

https://thehill.com/policy/national-sec ... eports?amp

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Re: The Russia Investigations and other Trump-related cases

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This is a statement signed by over 400 former federal prosecutors from both parties stating that "the conduct of President Trump described in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report would, in the case of any other person not covered by the Office of Legal Counsel policy against indicting a sitting President, result in multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice."

https://medium.com/@dojalumni/statement ... b7691c2aa1
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Re: The Russia Investigations and other Trump-related cases

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Now, over 650.
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Re: The Russia Investigations and other Trump-related cases

Post by Voronwë the Faithful »

735
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Re: The Russia Investigations and other Trump-related cases

Post by River »

What happens if they break 1000?
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Re: The Russia Investigations and other Trump-related cases

Post by Voronwë the Faithful »

A giant wave comes and swallows the White House.

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Re: The Russia Investigations and other Trump-related cases

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WaPo
BREAKING: White House asserts executive privilege over Mueller report in latest confrontation with Congress https://t.co/XhV0vS3gEb
Um. How does that work?
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Re: The Russia Investigations and other Trump-related cases

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It probably doesn't. But it burns up time.
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Re: The Russia Investigations and other Trump-related cases

Post by elengil »

Frelga wrote:WaPo
BREAKING: White House asserts executive privilege over Mueller report in latest confrontation with Congress https://t.co/XhV0vS3gEb
Um. How does that work?
With this president? Seemingly rather well, unfortunately. So long as everyone who has any power/authority to stand against it refuses to do so, it will continue to work. :nono:

Besides, even if it later gets overturned in court or whatnot, 'his people' will just cry about how unfair it is that this president isn't allowed to be a little dictator and do whatever he wants because like above-the-law or whatever.
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