Judge orders DOJ to release Trump obstruction memo
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Former Attorney General William Barr was criticized in a ruling issued by a federal judge late Monday over his handling of former special counsel Robert Mueller s investigation report into Russia meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Pool Photo by Michael Reynolds/UPI | License Photo
May 5 (UPI) A federal judge has ordered the Justice Department to release a secretive memo officials cited in 2019 as reason to not prosecute then-President Donald Trump with obstructing an investigation into Russia meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
The opinion released late Monday by Judge Amy Berman Jackson gives the department two weeks to hand over the memo to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, who had filed a Freedom of Information Act request for it.
“In other words, the review of the document reveals that the Attorney General was not then engaged in making a decision about whether the President should be charged with obstruction of justice; the fact that he would not be prosecuted was a given,” Jackson said in an order dated Monday.
The decision by Barr and senior Justice Department leaders to clear Trump of obstruction, even though special counsel Robert Mueller and his team pointedly did not reach that conclusion, was a significant moment for the president that he touted as vindication.
Barr issued a summary of Mueller s report a full month before the entire 448-page document was released, helping shape the public perception of the investigation s conclusions in a way that was favorable to Trump. Mueller subsequently complained to Barr that his summary had not fully captured the investigation s findings and had caused “public confusion.”
WASHINGTON (AP) A federal judge has ordered the release of a legal memorandum the Trump-era Justice Department prepared for then-Attorney General William Barr before he announced his conclusion that President Donald Trump had not obstructed justice during the Russia investigation.
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A Republican congressman is predicting that the release of an internal memo credited by former Attorney General Bill Barr for his decision not to charge former President Trump with obstruction of justice will validate Barr s decision.
Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, told Fox News on Wednesday that he believes the Department of Justice (DOJ) memo from March 2019 will validate Barr’s decision to clear Trump from obstruction of justice charges after after a federal judge ordered the memo to be turned over.
Federal Judge Orders DOJ to Release Memo Related to Trump Obstruction of Justice Charge
A federal district court judge in Washington has ordered the release of a legal memorandum prepared by the Trump-era Justice Department for then-Attorney General William Barr to assist in his decision on whether to prosecute then-President Donald Trump for obstruction of justice during the Mueller investigation.
The Justice Department had withheld the March 24, 2019 memo claiming that it should be exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act because it contained private advice of lawyers and was produced prior to any decisions were made.
But U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, an Obama appointee, rejected the argument, saying that at the time when Barr had received the memo he and the writers had a shared understanding over the decision not to prosecute Trump, and, therefore, the document was not “predecisional.”