The Many Problems With the Barr Letter

[dalton99a]

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/24/opinion/barr-mueller-report.html

The Many Problems With the Barr Letter
By unilaterally concluding that Trump did not obstruct justice, the attorney general has made it imperative that the public see the Mueller report.
By Neal K. Katyal
Mr. Katyal is a law professor at Georgetown. He drafted the special counsel regulations under which Robert Mueller was appointed.
March 24, 2019

On Sunday afternoon, soon after Attorney General Bill Barr released a letter outlining the Mueller investigation report, President Trump tweeted “Total EXONERATION!” But there are any number of reasons the president should not be taking a victory lap.

First, obviously, he still faces the New York investigations into campaign finance violations by the Trump team and the various investigations into the Trump organization. And Mr. Barr, in his letter, acknowledges that the Mueller report “does not exonerate” Mr. Trump on the issue of obstruction, even if it does not recommend an indictment.

But the critical part of the letter is that it now creates a whole new mess. After laying out the scope of the investigation and noting that Mr. Mueller’s report does not offer any legal recommendations, Mr. Barr declares that it therefore “leaves it to the attorney general to decide whether the conduct described in the report constitutes a crime.” He then concludes the president did not obstruct justice when he fired the F.B.I. director, James Comey.

Such a conclusion would be momentous in any event. But to do so within 48 hours of receiving the report (which pointedly did not reach that conclusion) should be deeply concerning to every American.

[Grasswire2]

1. Neal wrote the Special Counsel rules.

I always listen to what he says.

[OnDoutside]

9. Looks like he wrote them badly !

[BamaRefugee]

2. I don't know what to think about Katyal. Because he sure does love Neil Gorsuch. Article inside:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/31/opinion/why-liberals-should-back-neil-gorsuch.html

[avebury]

3. What Ari Melber is pointing out about the letter is the

comment that talks about no collusion was taken from the middle of a longer sentence and the rest of the sentence was not included with the section Barr used in his letter.

OK AG Barr, what did you intentionally leave out of your letter?

[BigmanPigman]

4. I saw that...it was spot on.

Who was the prosecutor guest that he was speaking with when he drew the bracketed [T]?

[Poiuyt]

7. How does Melber know this?

[avebury]

8. He picked up on it by the sentence

structure which indicated that there was something before the section in Barr's letter that Barr did not use. It appears that Barr only used what appeared to help Trump and might have taken the sentence out of context. It is critical to see the entire report.

[trickyguy]

5. I think it might be time for a Bob Mueller appreciation thread about now.

He did spend two years delving into the corruption of the Russian meddling and more.
And he did put some no-good rTump buddies behind bars right before they called him a con and a liar under oath.
And he did instigate indictments against a bunch of Russian operatives.

And he did NOT exonerate the president. Just gave him a pass for now until the Congress
can do what they need to do to give the American people some justice.

After reading many of the posts here yesterday and today, we haven't heard the last from
Attorney General Bill Barr. Nancy and Chuck will see to that.

And I'm sure Mueller will be speaking to all of this in due time.

I just don't know how to get this posted to the main page so will have to do with this offering.

[watoos]

6. We need a Daniel Ellsberg appreciation thread.

We need a freaking hero to release the Mueller report, going through the Nazi courts will take years.

Barr said at his confirmation hearing that no president can be indicted for obstruction of justice, why is everyone so surprised?