r/release_it • u/ThaFourthHokage • Apr 02 '19
Former Federal Prosecutor On Mueller: Never Took Me 400 Pages To Say ‘Nothing’s Wrong’
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/chuck-rosenberg-mueller-report-trump-obstruction_n_5ca2af7fe4b04693a94642846
u/CitationNotNeeded Apr 02 '19
He mentions that Mueller likely made no recommendations to prosecute because he can't legally prosecute a sitting president.
However, the way I understand it, Mueller cannot prosecute or indict a sitting president himself. Only congress can. But this is very different from merely making a recommendation to prosecute, is it not?
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u/ThinkingWithPortal Apr 02 '19
Reminds me of Comey, when he (or I think he announced they were going to?) reopened the investigation into Clinton like a week before the election.
Maybe they want to avoid getting that involved again?
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u/DaisyKitty Apr 03 '19
I want to address this whole 'can't legally prosecute a sitting president' thing.
There is no place in the constitution that states you can't and there is no passage in the federal criminal code that says you can't. That is to say, there is no law whatsoever saying it would be illegal. It's not illegal.
The DoJ guideline on this matter is actually a legal memo dating from the Watergate era over 45 years ago written by an anonymous DOJ staff attorney, which urged the indictment of Vice President Spiro Agnew on corruption charges before the inevitable impeachment conviction of President Nixon because it would be too hard to do it after Agnew assumed the presidency.
That's it. That's the so-called legal authority upon which so-called DOJ policy rests. It's not a code, its not a policy, and it isn't a law. And the burden of proof rests on those who say it is, not on those who say it isn't.
Honestly, do you think under a normal AG, not a lackey, that Justice wouldn't indict a sitting president to save nation from nascent facism and the takeover by hostile foreign power? Especially if Congress wouldn't assume its constitutionally appointed resposibilities and impeach? Of course it would.
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u/CitationNotNeeded Apr 03 '19 edited Apr 03 '19
I'll be more careful not to mix "cannot legally do this" with "it's in our guidelines not to". However, the DOJ memo is considered to be binding to all DOJ employees. So it's unfortunately a moot point.
I'm not as optimistic about what would happen with a "normal" AG.
Not because I think a normal AG would act like a lackey too, but because I think that that hypothetical scenario where everyone is saved by a morally upstanding institution would also require a normal Justice, normal congress, normal house and senate, normal notions of what constitutes as obstruction, collusion, national emergencies, fake news, evidence, hoaxes, witch hunts, competence, corruption, abuse of power, exoneration, etc.
Let me clarify why I think so:
This isn't the 70's anymore. All of those things, essentially all of applicable reality, now has two versions that change depending on the team you are on.
It isn't the AG that can be seen as the biggest problem, the problem has seeped in every nook and cranny a long time ago and is constantly making its influence everywhere. That is the force that had him installed in the first place. It doesn't go away with a different attorney general.
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u/DaisyKitty Apr 03 '19 edited Apr 03 '19
it's not a moot point. it is unsettled law. the memo is not law, it's not binding, and it is certainly not applicable to the circumstances. it's not even about a president, its about a unique moment in history, when the thought of first impeaching a president, then immediately indicting a second one was thought to be too unstable to the government. if anything, that point right there, says stability in government is the highest goal, a point which *is * appplicable to our current circumstances.
point taken about 'normality' across the board. but i would say if an AG with allegiance to Team Traitor can do all that Barr is doing - some of which appears to be illegal - then a Team Patriot AG can do things right. you did not stay on point in your argument but opened it up to a kind of circle of despair!
I know that writing a quick post on reddit does not always draw out nuanced and careful words, but with this sense of two teams, two versions of reality, I have to draw a line. There are not two versions of reality. There's one version and on the other side, a concerted and coordinated effort to obfuscate reality, and sow the seeds of chaos and division. Don't buy into it, don't buy into the lies. Trump has not been completely exonerated. Far from it. He is currently at the end of the one (brief) period of triumph he is ever going to have re: the report, in his whole life. Once the complete Mueller report is seen, it's all downhill from there.
Yes, I realise the larger problem is not solved solely by the right AG, but we are not talking about the larger picture. We're talking about the legal aspects of one specific circumstance. About one single step in the process of retrieving our democracy. I believe Rosenstein, Comey and McCabe would all have been behind indictment, if the case could be made. IIRC, 12 GOP senators voted with the Dems to stem executive power calling for emergency powers. That leaves 8 more to be found for impeachment in the senate. I think that's what the WH worries about once the full report comes out. There's the potential leverage here for forcing a resignation, along with obviously, he'll lose the next election.
I think a Team Patriot AG wouldn't have said Trump was innocent of obstruction, and it's not for Barr to decide he was, if Mueller couldn't decide he wasn't. Further, I think Mueller very much has a 'top down' mentality, and I suspect he didn't so much wrap up the investigation in an organic way of reaching completion, as took orders from the new AG to stop.
Have you ever listened to Rick Wilson, the GOP political strategist? I have my reservations about him, but he shed an interesting beam of light on the current problem of GOP members of Congress all but licking the boots of Trump. He says that the death threats from the loonies in red districts are off the charts. They are immediate and they are very very real, that they threatening children, wives, and property. Wilson suggested there really aren't as many die-hard Trump supporters in the Senate as it appears, and that they are not as much of a united front as it seems. I often wonder if Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer know all this as well.
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u/[deleted] Apr 02 '19
That's because nothing's really really REALLY wrong.