I'm not sure I buy that these actions are not criminal, but certainly Mueller didn't find conspiracy under the narrow definition he was allowed to look for.
It's about Barr's summary of the report. Barr was saying Mueller didn't think his summary was inaccurate/misleading. Graham is asking Mueller if he can refute it. Important! I HOPE Mueller wasn't pulling a Romney here. The good thing is that Barr has given little room for Mueller to give him anything nice. Barr didn't read the report, he's disingenuously arguing that Mueller could have made a charging decision, etc.
Btw guys, GREAT idea by Seth:
I missed Seth's tweet but I came to post about Barr saying that Mueller should have either have intended to indict if evidence warrants or never have investigated. This completely invalidates policies forbidding indictment of a sitting President and presents an interesting choice to the SDNY. Given Barr's testimony, they should indict if they do not immediately stop all investigations.
Some peers of Preet are no doubt discussing the implications of all this and may choose to go with proper standards of prosecution as Barr promoted however unintentionally.
New Rules! But only after the fact, of course. None of which really matters, given that the House defines what's an impeachable offense, not a prosecutable offense. The Constitution is a higher order of the Law.
He can say anything he wants. Barr can fire him for it but I don't think he's skeered.
Its circular reasoning at best and completely absolves the president from being convicted of any crime.
But Barr has not said the President may not be investigated and consequently if an investigation begins then there must be prosecutorial intent. There is no circle because Barr breaks it.
Edit- as Seth presents it then yes, but that's only if investigators choose to not use the permission whether intended or not to prosecute. Indeed it is their duty to do so.
If the DOJ has a policy to not indict a sitting president (and it does), then they cannot investigate the president because they won't indict him even if they wanted to.
Why can't SDNY do what Barr is doing and ignore the shutdown."They" is nonspecific. Barr came out and said that Mueller should have investigated with intent to prosecute or not at all. Barr did not say that prosecutions are out of bounds. This is the newest opinion by the head of the DOJ. That Mueller didn't prosecute does not prevent investigation at all. There's no prohibition by Barr who did not say that Mueller could not indict.
That gives the SDNY the latest opinion unless Barr shuts down ALL investigations on the basis that a President may not be investigated. Barr has removed previous standards in his testimony and the SDNY can and may indict and Barr then try to walk back his resulting determination by testimony. If Barr things that Presidents are impossible then all investigations should already be closed and they are not.
Why can't SDNY do what Barr is doing and ignore the shutdown.
After all hasn't that precedent already been set? See where I'm going?
You said in earlier post if SDNY continues their investigations Barr could shut them down.I don't understand what you are saying. The SDNY has a demonstrated record (even now) of pursuing truth and seeking justice. Of all the options out there the SDNY shooting itself in the foot to please Barr about prosecutions they've worked with dedication on would seem the least likely.
It seems that people are eager to present things as being impossible and if that is what people believe then it's time to despair and die.
It's far from after the fact. For Mueller, sure but there's 14 or so other investigations going on and in particular things the SDNY has not officially closed. Based on the Cohen trial and Barr's testimony the "new rules" apply to them and they now have Bar saying they can prosecute.
The whole issue with Mueller is that there is absolutely nothing from him stating in the report something like: "due to the OLC's guidelines, president Trump will not be charged with an obstruction offense. However there is ample evidence to do so were the guidelines favorable".
He's not saying that at all. He's saying Mueller never should have investigated obstruction because policy disallows prosecutorial choice when it comes to any President. No ordinary prosecutor should investigate if there's no way to indict. Except the Special Counsel is no ordinary prosecutor. His primary purpose was to investigate & report with prosecutions being secondary to that. Here's the letter-
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3726408-Rosenstein-letter-appointing-Mueller-special.html
Ref (b)(ii) The other matter that arose was the 10 times Trump attempted to thwart the investigation. Given that the Prez can't be indicted it becomes a matter for Congress. Barr's prosecutorial judgement to exonerate in the face of the evidence is immaterial.
In addition to questioning Mueller’s reasoning for not charging Trump with obstruction, which included the citation of Justice Department policy that restricts the indictment of a sitting president, he suggested the special counsel’s actions raised the question of why he even opened up this aspect of the investigation in the first place.
“I think that if he felt that he shouldn’t go down the path of making a traditional prosecutive decision, he shouldn’t have investigated it. That was the time to pull up,” Barr said.
It's actually what Barr said-
https://www.vox.com/2019/5/1/18522458/bill-barr-mueller-report-trump-obstruction-of-justice
He cited DoJ policy of not indicting a sitting President as reason for Mueller not to investigate at all. The whole "charging recommendation" thing is bullshit. Recommend to who? Mueller has the independent power to indict anybody he wants except the Prez because policy prevents the latter.
Let
Let's test that.
I think that’s what our allies need to do, just simply call out this administrations bull shit. Sure it probably means trump will retaliate and give more states secrets to Putin but then they should just call him out on that too. If our allies thinks trumps a traitor or his admin is deranged then maybe some trump supporters will start to re-evaluate that support.
I don't think that will accomplish anything. I mean Turmp himself literally does this same thing (that Barr is doing) openly and it doesn't seem to matter.