The Biden administration said Monday that it would appeal a judge's order directing it to release a legal memo on whether President Donald Trump had obstructed.
The DOJ appealed a federal judge’s ruling ordering the release of the 2019 legal memo cited by then-AG Bill Barr as justification for not pursuing obstruction charges against Donald Trump. The post Biden DOJ Appeals Ruling That Ordered the Release of a Memo Cited by Bill Barr to Justify Not Pursuing Obstruction Charges Against Trump first appeared on Law & Crime.
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The Biden DOJ is fighting to keep secret a memo that Bill Barr used to clear Trump of obstruction.
Barr cited the memo in his decision not to charge Trump, and a judge ordered its release this month.
Here s what s in the memo, why it s controversial, and why Biden s DOJ wants to keep it under wraps.
The special counsel Robert Mueller s investigation into Russia s interference in the 2016 US election formally wrapped up more than two years ago.
But the inquiry catapulted back into the spotlight this month when a federal judge ordered the Justice Department to release a secret memo that Attorney General William Barr used in 2019 to clear President Donald Trump of obstruction of justice.
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Earlier this month, District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson ordered that the document be made public and accused Barr and Justice Department lawyers of making misrepresentations about why it should be kept secret. In retrospect, the government acknowledges that its briefs could have been clearer, and it deeply regrets the confusion that caused, the DOJ said in a court filing asking Jackson to stay her decision while the government appeals.
But, the DOJ argued, that imprecision in its characterization of the decisional process did not warrant the conclusion that the full document should be released.
Jackson s decision stems from a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed in 2019 by the liberal watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), which sought internal DOJ documents supporting Barr s conclusion that Trump s conduct during the Mueller investigation did not amount to obstruction of justice.
The Justice Department filed an appeal of a federal judge’s order to release the full Office of Legal Counsel memo supporting former Attorney General William Barr’s decision following the receipt of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report related to whether former President Donald Trump committed obstruction of justice.