re: Justin Amash thinks Barr lied & Trump should be impeached

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Navytiger74



You are a coward and embarrassment to this country.

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He's not even really a Navy guy. He's just another fatass bureaucrat with a desk job.

PS - I will give him credit for one thing, though. At least he isn't trying to hide his real political mindset anymore. Urkel used to claim that he never voted for Obama, but he told off on himself during two different drunken stupors on two different Saturday nights.

I noticed you didn’t post any specifics.

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I keep hearing the left claim this but I’ve yet to see evidence where he said THE reason he didn’t do anything was because of DOJ policy.

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This Volume of our report summarizes our obstruction-of-justice investigation of the President.

We first describe the considerations that guided our obstruction-of-justice investigation, and then provide an overview of this Volume:

First, a traditional prosecution or declination decision entails a binary determination to initiate or decline a prosecution, but we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment. The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has issued an opinion finding that "the indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would impermissibly undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions" in violation of "the constitutional separation of powers." 1 Given the role of the Special Counsel as an attorney in the Department of Justice and the framework of the Special Counsel regulations, see 28 U.S.C. § 515; 28 C.F.R. § 600.7(a), this Office accepted OLC's legal conclusion for the purpose of exercising prosecutorial jurisdiction. And apart from OLC's constitutional view, we recognized that a federal criminal accusation against a sitting President would place burdens on the President's capacity to govern and potentially preempt constitutional processes for addressing presidential misconduct.

2 Second, while the OLC opinion concludes that a sitting President may not be prosecuted, it recognizes that a criminal investigation during the President's term is permissible. 3 The OLC opinion also recognizes that a President does not have immunity after he leaves office. 4 And if individuals other than the President committed an obstruction offense, they may be prosecuted at this time. Given those considerations, the facts known to us, and the strong public interest in safeguarding the integrity of the criminal justice system, we conducted a thorough factual investigation in order to preserve the evidence when memories were fresh and documentary materials were available.

Third, we considered whether to evaluate the conduct we investigated under the Justice Manual standards governing prosecution and declination decisions, but we determined not to apply an approach that could potentially result in a judgment that the President committed crimes.

The threshold step under the Justice Manual standards is to assess whether a person's conduct " constitutes a federal offense." U.S. Dep't of Justice, Justice Manual§ 9-27.220 (2018) (Justice Manual). Fairness concerns counseled against potentially reaching that judgment when no charges can be brought.

The ordinary means for an individual to respond to an accusation is through a speedy and public trial, with all the procedural protections that surround a criminal case. An individual who believes he was wrongly accused can use that process to seek to clear his name. In contrast, a prosecutor's judgment that crimes were committed, but that no charges will be brought, affords no such adversarial opportunity for public name-clearing before an impartial adjudicator.

5 The concerns about the fairness of such a determination would be heightened in the case of a sitting President, where a federal prosecutor's accusation of a crime, even in an internal report, could carry consequences that extend beyond the realm of criminal justice.

OLC noted similar concerns about sealed indictments. Even if an indictment were sealed during the President's term, OLC reasoned, "it would be very difficult to preserve [an indictment' s] secrecy," and if an indictment became public, "[t]he stigma and opprobrium" could imperil the President's ability to govern."6 Although a prosecutor's internal report would not represent a formal public accusation akin to an indictment, the possibility of the report's public disclosure and the absence of a neutral adjudicatory forum to review its findings counseled against potentially determining "that the person's conduct constitutes a federal offense." Justice Manual § 9-27.220.

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Attorney General Barr has deliberately misrepresented Mueller’s report.

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CONGRESS HAS THE FULL REPORT AND ALL OF THE DEMOCRATIC LEADERS HAVE READ IT. IF BARR HAD MISREPRESENTED ANYTHING AT ALL WE'D ALREADY KNOW. HE ISN'T HIDING THE REPORT.

Glad I got that off my chest.

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Nice hyperbole

Zero specifics

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Efforts to fire Mueller
Obstructive act (p. 87): Former White House Counsel Don McGahn is a “credible witness” in providing evidence that Trump indeed attempted to fire Mueller. This “would qualify as an obstructive act” if the firing “would naturally obstruct the investigation and any grand jury proceedings that might flow from the inquiry.” Nexus (p. 89): “Substantial evidence” indicates that, at this point, Trump was aware that “his conduct was under investigation by a federal prosecutor who could present any evidence of federal crimes to a grand jury.” Intent (p. 89): “Substantial evidence indicates that the President’s attempts to remove the Special Counsel were linked to the Special Counsel’s oversight of investigations that involved the President’s conduct[.]”

Efforts to curtail Mueller
Obstructive act (p. 97): Trump’s effort to force Sessions to confine the investigation to only investigating future election interference “would qualify as an obstructive act if it would naturally obstruct the investigation and any grand jury proceedings that might flow from the inquiry.” “Taken together, the President’s directives indicate that Sessions was being instructed to tell the Special Counsel to end the existing investigation into the President and his campaign[.]” Nexus (p. 97): At the relevant point, “the existence of a grand jury investigation supervised by the Special Counsel was public knowledge.” Intent (p. 97): “Substantial evidence” indicates that Trump’s efforts were “intended to prevent further investigative structiny of the President’s and his campaign’s conduct.”

Order to McGahn to deny Trump’s order to fire Mueller
Obstructive act (p. 118): This effort “would qualify as an obstructive act if it had the natural tendency to constrain McGahn from testifying truthfully or to undermine his credibility as a potential witness[.]” There is “some evidence” that Trump genuinely believed press reports that he had ordered McGahn to fire Mueller were wrong. However, “[o]ther evidence cuts against that understanding of the president’s conduct”—and the special counsel lists a great deal more evidence on this latter point. Nexus (p. 119): At this point “the Special Counsel’s use of a grand jury had been further confirmed by the return of several indictments.” Mueller’s office had indicated to Trump’s lawyers that it was investigating obstruction, and Trump knew that McGahn had already been interviewed by Mueller on the topic. “That evidence indicates the President’s awareness” that his efforts to fire Mueller were relevant to official proceedings. Trump “likely contemplated the ongoing investigation and any proceedings arising from it” in directing McGahn to create a false record of the earlier interaction. Intent (p. 120): “Substantial evidence indicates that … the President acted for the purpose of influencing McGahn’s account in order to deflect or prevent further scrutiny” of Trump.

WHere is that graph from?

Beautiful. Was hoping you would use McGahn. He also said Trumps reasoning was because he felt Mueller had a conflict of interest. I noticed you didn’t address the element of corrupt intent. If you are going to use McGahn’s testimony about the attempted actions as proof of elements of a crime, you must also use his motive given in the same exact interview. This means there was no corrupt intent and therefore no possibility of obstruction.

Again....does your ignorance know no bounds?

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WHere is that graph from?

bmy’s computer. He made it himself after reading the Mueller report four times.

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Hey, gotta give em credit for the effort. The colors are beautiful.

You're missing the point that we have presumed innocence until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Mueller failed in that aspect. No matter how many words you type, it's not going to change anything.

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You even emphasized the because clause. Nowhere in what you just pasted does it make the claim you have presented.

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read it one more time it might stick they decided to not return a binary conclusion because of the DOJ policies

Mueller was unable to conclude that Trump obstructed justice because it is DOJ policy that a sitting president cannot be indicted.

quote:

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This Volume of our report summarizes our obstruction-of-justice investigation of the President.

We first describe the considerations that guided our obstruction-of-justice investigation, and then provide an overview of this Volume:

First, a traditional prosecution or declination decision entails a binary determination to initiate or decline a prosecution, but we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment. The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has issued an opinion finding that "the indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would impermissibly undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions" in violation of "the constitutional separation of powers." 1 Given the role of the Special Counsel as an attorney in the Department of Justice and the framework of the Special Counsel regulations, see 28 U.S.C. § 515; 28 C.F.R. § 600.7(a), this Office accepted OLC's legal conclusion for the purpose of exercising prosecutorial jurisdiction. And apart from OLC's constitutional view, we recognized that a federal criminal accusation against a sitting President would place burdens on the President's capacity to govern and potentially preempt constitutional processes for addressing presidential misconduct.

2 Second, while the OLC opinion concludes that a sitting President may not be prosecuted, it recognizes that a criminal investigation during the President's term is permissible. 3 The OLC opinion also recognizes that a President does not have immunity after he leaves office. 4 And if individuals other than the President committed an obstruction offense, they may be prosecuted at this time. Given those considerations, the facts known to us, and the strong public interest in safeguarding the integrity of the criminal justice system, we conducted a thorough factual investigation in order to preserve the evidence when memories were fresh and documentary materials were available.

Third, we considered whether to evaluate the conduct we investigated under the Justice Manual standards governing prosecution and declination decisions, but we determined not to apply an approach that could potentially result in a judgment that the President committed crimes.

The threshold step under the Justice Manual standards is to assess whether a person's conduct " constitutes a federal offense." U.S. Dep't of Justice, Justice Manual§ 9-27.220 (2018) (Justice Manual). Fairness concerns counseled against potentially reaching that judgment when no charges can be brought.

The ordinary means for an individual to respond to an accusation is through a speedy and public trial, with all the procedural protections that surround a criminal case. An individual who believes he was wrongly accused can use that process to seek to clear his name. In contrast, a prosecutor's judgment that crimes were committed, but that no charges will be brought, affords no such adversarial opportunity for public name-clearing before an impartial adjudicator.

5 The concerns about the fairness of such a determination would be heightened in the case of a sitting President, where a federal prosecutor's accusation of a crime, even in an internal report, could carry consequences that extend beyond the realm of criminal justice.

OLC noted similar concerns about sealed indictments. Even if an indictment were sealed during the President's term, OLC reasoned, "it would be very difficult to preserve [an indictment' s] secrecy," and if an indictment became public, "[t]he stigma and opprobrium" could imperil the President's ability to govern."6 Although a prosecutor's internal report would not represent a formal public accusation akin to an indictment, the possibility of the report's public disclosure and the absence of a neutral adjudicatory forum to review its findings counseled against potentially determining "that the person's conduct constitutes a federal offense." Justice Manual § 9-27.220.

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