investigation and prosecution of high-level executive branch officials including, of course, including the precedent and what happened here is the appointed mueller special counsel, but when it came time for the key question, are you did donald trump commit federal felonies, mueller refused to answer because of a department of justice policy that says you can t indict a sitting president, a policy that goes back to 1973. barr said, well, in that case, i get to decide that for myself, and so he appoints this guy, steve engel who is at the office of legal counsel who is not a criminal division. this is a totally separate part and engel is a political appoint see and this political appointee writes this nine-page tendentious memo and i don t think donald trump committed any crimes. it is absurd start to finish and it is a betrayal of what the
special counsel regulations are all about. neal, just a quick follow up. i mean, if the steve engel is running the office that drafted the memo that says the president can t be indicted why can t steve engel author the declaration memo. if you can t indict him anyway, why did steve engel put in writing the very thing that his office made him possible? i can t fathom it. again, either substantively or procedurally and why the office of legal counsel is opining on facts and the criminal investigation, i ve certainly never seen that done by the office of legal counsel before and as you say, if you can t indict a sitting president what is it that you re actually doing here and the thing that they re doing is providing as professor ryan goodman said they get out of jail free card and it s now a get out of jail card for other folks.
gives an unsupportable view of the facts and the law, and then finally, besides playing in that respect, it actually gives the the real problem here on the number one thing that screams out, they determined that there should have been a bottom-line determination, mueller had determined not. why, then, not give it to mueller and it s clear from one line in the memo, it s because they really didn t trust his bottom line conclusion if he were asked to give one. so, it was taken from him and given to steve engel and the two political officials. that s controversial. what did they think his bottom line conclusion would be, harry? that there that there was enough to charge obstruction or at least you could read the memo that way. and other people have worked on the investigation, make it clear that that s where they were coming from. and remember, mueller put out a letter saying that after this this memo, saying that it had
that memo which was signed by top barr doj officials callahan and steven engel conformed the contract beyond recognition to embolden a then-president who was abusing the powers of his office to protect his political and personal interest. the freedom of information lawsuit prompted the release of this memo reacted this way, quote. the memo supports the chilling conclusion that any president could interfere with any investigation if they believe it could damage them politically. nyu law professor ryan goodman called the memo a get out of jail free card in a statement to the new york times neal katyal, i guess the only hoax was the one trump doj played on all of us. the question that pete strzok couldn t answer for me, if you thought the mueller report was garbage and it turned out nothing could endanger trump
ed o callahan and steve engel decided not to answer. they write this in the second page of the memo to bill barr. although the special counsel has declined to reach a conclusion, we think the department should reach a judgement on this matter. on traditional principles of prosecution the department either brings charges or it does not. because the department brings charges against an individual only the charges beyond a reasonable doubt, any uncertainty concerning the facts and law underlying a proposed prosecution ultimately must be resolved in favor of that individual. the principle does not change simply because the subject of the investigation is the president. that s not what the special counsel found at all and they found all of the evidence and the six acts for the criminal destruction of justice. what robert mueller said if i could say laws had been broken i would. why did they distort the basic