Trump taunts liberal group after DoJ memo clearing him of obstruction is unveiled

Remember when then-Attorney General Bill Barr ruled in March of 2019 that then-President Donald Trump wasn’t guilty of obstruction of justice? The decision by the then-AG triggered howls of “corruption” from Democrats and their media allies.

However, it’s since been learned that Barr hadn’t made the decision in a vacuum. Rather, he’d made the decision after being advised to do so by then-Office of Legal Counsel official Steven Engel and then-Deputy Attorney General Edward O’Callaghan.

Specifically, the two had penned a 9-page memo arguing that the evidence contained in then-special counsel Robert Mueller’s “Report” wasn’t “sufficient” to support the obstruction-of-justice charges sought by Democrats.

A fair evaluation of the Special Counsel’s findings and legal theories weighs in favor of declining prosecution,” the memo reads.

“While cataloging actions that the President took, many of which took place in public view, the Report identifies no actions that, in our judgment, constituted obstructive acts, done with a nexus to a pending proceeding, with the corrupt intent necessary to warrant prosecution under the obstruction-of-justice statues,” it continues.

(Source: Politico)

According to Politico, these “actions” included “Trump’s threats to fire Mueller and his various public and private outbursts against witnesses he viewed as hostile or unhelpful to him.”

In explaining away these “actions,” “Engel and O’Callaghan concluded that Trump’s conduct primarily reflected a frustration with the Mueller probe and what he perceived to be the politics behind it, as well as news reports they said Trump genuinely believed were flawed,” Politico notes.

The two “also suggested that Trump’s exhortations to some of his top allies against ‘flipping’ were meant to prevent them from delivering false testimony — not to conceal the truth.”

Engel and O’Callaghan also noted in their memo that there was no precedent for charging Trump with obstruction of justice.

“To our knowledge, the Special Counsel’s investigation on potential obstruction is not similar to any reported case that the Department has previously charged under the obstruction-of-justice statutes. The Report identifies no obstruction case that the Department has pursued under remotely similar circumstances, and we have not identified any either,” the memo reads.

(Source: Politico)

The memo was finally unveiled this week by the Department of Justice in response to a Freedom of Information Act complaint filed three years ago by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a liberal watchdog group.

Trump for his part responded to the memo’s release by mocking CREW, according to the Washington Examiner.

“CREW is devastated by these findings, that they worked so hard to ‘expose,’ but may now move on to the even more ridiculous Witch Hunt that has already caused a great Mar-a-Lago Red Wave with the voters of our Nation!” he said in a statement.

He also touted the memo’s conclusions.

“In the nine-page memo it was revealed that, ‘Nothing would warrant a prosecution for obstruction of justice.’ It underscored that ‘Mueller had not found sufficient evidence to charge any underlying crime,’ and that the President ‘reasonably believed that the Special Counsel’s investigation was interfering with his governing agenda,'” the statement continues.

“The memo concluded that ‘the evidence was insufficient to support a criminal charge — even if Trump were not president.’ It was stated that my ‘conduct primarily reflected a frustration with the Mueller probe and what [I] perceived to be the politics behind it,’ in addition to what I believed were absolutely flawed and Fake News reports. Sound familiar?”

In a statement of its own, CREW complained that the memo was unfairly “generous” to the former president.

“The memo presents a breathtakingly generous view of the law and facts for Donald Trump. It significantly twists the facts and the law to benefit Donald Trump and does not comport with a serious reading of the law of obstruction of justice or the facts as found by Special Counsel Mueller,” the statement reads.

“Among many other problems, it is premised on the fact that there was no underlying criminal conduct, which is not what Mueller found, and waves its hand at there being no exact precedent to compare it to. The memo supports the chilling conclusion that any president can interfere with any investigation if they believe it could damage them politically. It is clear why Barr did not want the public to see it.”

Other leftists have also been whining about the memo and are now demanding that House Democrats launch yet another investigation — this time against “Barr and his lackeys.”

Vivek Saxena

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