Trump would have been charged with obstruction were he not President: 450 prosecutors

[Mormolyce]

Trump would have been charged with obstruction were he not president, hundreds of former federal prosecutors assert

More than 450 former federal prosecutors who worked in Republican and Democratic administrations have signed on to a statement asserting special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s findings would have produced obstruction charges against President Trump — if not for the office he holds.

The statement — signed by myriad former career government employees as well as high-profile political appointees — offers a rebuttal to Attorney General William P. Barr’s determination that the evidence Mueller uncovered was “not sufficient” to establish that Trump committed a crime.

Mueller had declined to say one way or the other whether Trump should have been charged, citing a Justice Department legal opinion that sitting presidents cannot be indicted, as well as concerns about the fairness of accusing someone for whom there can be no court proceeding.

“Each of us believes 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,” the former federal prosecutors wrote.

“We emphasize that these are not matters of close professional judgment,” they added. “Of course, there are potential defenses or arguments that could be raised in response to an indictment of the nature we describe here. . . . But, to look at these facts and say that a prosecutor could not probably sustain a conviction for obstruction of justice — the standard set out in Principles of Federal Prosecution — runs counter to logic and our experience.”

The statement is notable for the number of people who signed it — 375 as of early Monday afternoon, growing to 459 in the hours after it published — and the positions and political affiliations of some on the list. It was posted online Monday afternoon; those signing it did not explicitly address what, if anything, they hope might happen next.

Among the high-profile signers are Bill Weld, a former U.S. attorney and Justice Department official in the Reagan administration who is running against Trump for the Republican presidential nomination; Donald Ayer, a former deputy attorney general in the George H.W. Bush administration; John S. Martin, a former U.S. attorney and federal judge appointed to his posts by Republican presidents; Paul Rosenzweig, who served as senior counsel to independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr; and Jeffrey Harris, who worked as the principal assistant to Rudolph W. Giuliani when he was at the Justice Department in the Reagan administration.

The list also includes more than 20 former U.S. attorneys and more than 100 people with at least 20 years of service at the Justice Department — most of them former career officials. The signers worked in every presidential administration since that of Dwight D. Eisenhower. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a former federal prosecutor, joined the letter after news of it broke, and Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), chair of the House Intelligence Committee, tweeted his support for its premise .

The signatures were collected by the nonprofit group Protect Democracy, which counts Justice Department alumni among its staff and was contacted about the statement last week by a group of former federal prosecutors, said Justin Vail, an attorney at Protect Democracy.

“We strongly believe that Americans deserve to hear from the men and women who spent their careers weighing evidence and making decisions about whether it was sufficient to justify prosecution, so we agreed to send out a call for signatories,” Vail said. “The response was overwhelming. This effort reflects the voices of former prosecutors who have served at DOJ and signed the statement.”

Weld said by the time he reviewed the statement, it already had more than 100 signatures, and he affixed his name because he had concluded the evidence “goes well beyond what is required to support criminal charges of obstruction of justice.”

“I hope the letter will be persuasive evidence that Attorney General Barr’s apparent legal theory is incorrect,” he said.

A spokesman for the special counsel’s office declined to comment. A spokeswoman for the Justice Department referred a reporter to Barr’s previous public statements on the subject.

Many legal analysts have wondered since Mueller’s report was released whether the special counsel believed he had sufficient evidence to charge Trump and was just unwilling to say it out loud.

By the report’s account, Trump — after learning he was being investigated for obstruction — told his White House counsel to have Mueller removed. And when that did not work, according to Mueller’s report, Trump tried to have a message passed to then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to limit the scope of Mueller’s authority. Of that episode, Mueller’s team wrote there was “substantial evidence” to indicate Trump was trying to “prevent further investigative scrutiny” of himself and his campaign.

“All of this conduct — trying to control and impede the investigation against the President by leveraging his authority over others — is similar to conduct we have seen charged against other public officials and people in powerful positions,” the former federal prosecutors wrote in their letter.

They wrote that prosecuting such cases was “critical because unchecked obstruction — which allows intentional interference with criminal investigations to go unpunished — puts our whole system of justice at risk.”

Mueller’s team, though, wrote that it decided not to make a “traditional prosecutorial judgment” in part because of the Justice Department opinion on not indicting sitting presidents and because the evidence obtained “presents difficult issues that would need to be resolved” if they were to do so.

“At the same time, if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state,” Mueller’s team wrote.

After receiving Mueller’s report, Barr said he and Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein reviewed the case themselves and determined the evidence was not there. He offered a robust defense of that decision at a recent congressional hearing, detailing for lawmakers possible defenses Trump could have raised in each episode.

“The government has to prove things beyond a reasonable doubt,” Barr said. “And, as the report shows, there’s ample evidence on the other side of the ledger that would prevent the government from establishing that.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...=.b151afb43222

Basically just making clear what anyone who's actually read the Mueller report already knows.

[Dontrike]

But you don't get it! Trump said total exoneration and Barr has Trump's cock so firmly down his throat that it's renting space and has its own gold toilet, therefore Trump can't be guilty.

[rda]

Frankly, it's rather hilarious to be seeing new threads about Mueller / Trump-Russia popping up because the main thread saw the main fans of the "we have to pin Trump on anything, no matter what it is" methodically destroyed and reduced to yelling "you are trolls, not talking to you, la la la la la".

Don't ever dare to complain about the mods who let these new pathetic threads stay even though in reality they should be merged into the main one. And yes, although the first posts are mostly laughable and this one is no exception, and the main thread contains discussions on the subject of this and other threads, I am not going to re-quote anything from there to here. Will let you have a small bit of spiritual peace created by nobody bothering to address your supposed points that you seem to need.

[Spectral]

Bill Weld

Quite the headliner they've got

“I hope the letter will be persuasive evidence that Attorney General Barr’s apparent legal theory is incorrect,” [Weld] said.

Is this guy shitting me? Does he actually think anyone's still changing their mind?

[shimerra]

Frankly, it's rather hilarious to be seeing new threads about Mueller / Trump-Russia popping up because the main thread saw the main fans of the "we have to pin Trump on anything, no matter what it is" methodically destroyed and reduced to yelling "you are trolls, not talking to you, la la la la la".

Don't ever dare to complain about the mods who let these new pathetic threads stay even though in reality they should be merged into the main one. And yes, although the first posts are mostly laughable and this one is no exception, and the main thread contains discussions on the subject of this and other threads, I am not going to re-quote anything from there to here. Will let you have a small bit of spiritual peace created by nobody bothering to address your supposed points that you seem to need.

I don't know what's more funny. That you think your posts are anything other than verbal diarrhea or that you methodically destroyed anything.

You must be a stable genius like trump.

[Dontrike]

Frankly, it's rather hilarious to be seeing new threads about Mueller / Trump-Russia popping up because the main thread saw the main fans of the "we have to pin Trump on anything, no matter what it is" methodically destroyed and reduced to yelling "you are trolls, not talking to you, la la la la la".

Aw, it's cute how hundreds of legal experts say Trump did something illegal and Barr is full of shit and all you have is "lololol, they are trying to pin him on anything, even though he's already been pinned with plenty....BUT DON'T FOCUS ON THE EVIDENCE!!!"

Seriously, if Trump wasn't president and he was a normal person he'd already have been on the stand for weeks. If we didn't have a Senate trying their best to suck every last millimeter of that Toadstool of his we'd actually get shit done.

[Levelfive]

Aw, it's cute how hundreds of legal experts say Trump did something illegal and Barr is full of shit and all you have is "lololol, they are trying to pin him on anything, even though he's already been pinned with plenty....BUT DON'T FOCUS ON THE EVIDENCE!!!"

Seriously, if Trump wasn't president and he was a normal person he'd already have been on the stand for weeks. If we didn't have a Senate trying their best to suck every last millimeter of that Toadstool of his we'd actually get shit done.

On the upside, this whole thing has really shed light on the fact that, up until now, it's all been held together with spit (or whatever) and old-timey norms, and that we need a major structural overhaul to give black letter power and meaning to "co-equal." On the downside, for that to happen, Republicans would have to suddenly start giving a shit about the Constitution and the rule of law. Womp womp.

[some guy]

On the upside, this whole thing has really shed light on the fact that, up until now, it's all been held together with spit (or whatever) and old-timey norms, and that we need a major structural overhaul to give black letter power and meaning to "co-equal." On the downside, for that to happen, Republicans would have to suddenly start giving a shit about the Constitution and the rule of law. Womp womp.

They will give a shit as soon as a democrat occupies the white house.

[kaelleria]

We're up to 634 now.

Link to the actual letter -
https://medium.com/@dojalumni/statem...s-8ab7691c2aa1

[Levelfive]

They will give a shit as soon as a democrat occupies the white house.

Well, as soon as they lose the Senate, anyway--which they've done a pretty great job of protecting structurally through gerrymandering and court packing while Democrats were busy gluing their balls to their leg, as Jon Stewart would say.

[Dontrike]

On the upside, this whole thing has really shed light on the fact that, up until now, it's all been held together with spit (or whatever) and old-timey norms, and that we need a major structural overhaul to give black letter power and meaning to "co-equal." On the downside, for that to happen, Republicans would have to suddenly start giving a shit about the Constitution and the rule of law. Womp womp.

They'll care when the next president has a (D) next to their name.

We're up to 634 now.

Link to the actual letter -
https://medium.com/@dojalumni/statem...s-8ab7691c2aa1

"Political lapdogs!" - @Sulla

[Levelfive]

They'll care when the next president has a (D) next to their name.

They won't care until they lose the Senate, which they've been very effective at ensuring won't happen for quite some time.

[Daelak]

They are. Noting that they found a few more doesn't change anything.

Hmmmmm, hundreds of prosecutors who have practiced law and have a detailed understanding of charges, or, all of them are Obama/Killary/Soros anti-Trump revolutionaries who will gladly misinterpret the laws to embarrass trump.

[Orbitus]

Whatever you say. What law isn't being respected? Surely we have remedy for such a thing...

I don't buy into meaningless, opportunistic aphorism, so you're wasting your breath.

Dems rattling on about the rule of law and checks and balances in a post-Obama world just isn't that impressive. It's sad really.

Obviously the Obstruction of Justice laws that Trump broke. Otherwise they wouldn't be talking about it.

There is nothing that Obama did that would require him to get arrested, same with anyone in his campaign or cabinet.

[Daelak]

Yeah, clearly there is no political motivation at all. Meanwhile, Trump is still your President, so it's on to the next thing no one gives a fuck about in the long list of things no one has given a fuck about.

Guess which explanation requires a grand conspiracy among prosecutors in different states, authority, and length of practice? Or, is it just the simplest explanation; prosecutors around the US believe the threshold has been reached. This isn't a difficult exercise.

[Sky High]

yeah, no shit he would already be in jail if that wasn't the case. just wait until 2021 and we can look forward to Donny wearing the only thing more orange than his face.

[troqu]

Guess which explanation requires a grand conspiracy among prosecutors in different states, authority, and length of practice? Or, is it just the simplest explanation; prosecutors around the US believe the threshold has been reached. This isn't a difficult exercise.

Yeah, but you see... they don't use their brain, they just accept what their lord and savior tells them.

[Somewhatconcerned]

And if your aunt had balls she'd be your uncle.

Context matters.

[Edge-]

Yeah, clearly there is no political motivation at all.

Is this the, "Everyone critical of Trump must be a secret liberal!" notion?

[Edge-]

You don't have to be a liberal necessarily to be part of the "the resistance". I probably hate your guts and think you're a pretty bad Republican/Conservative if you do, but you're not necessarily a liberal.

Oh, so you're a secret liberal or a fake conservative, then? There are no "real conservatives" or "good Republicans" unless they're 100% behind Trump, then?