Mueller Investigation pt5

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Paul2 said:
Confidential to who?
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To the AG, according to the link I provided earlier.


Confidential from Congress? Confidential from the Intelligence or Oversight committee?
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Yes and yes, according to the link I provided earlier.


Alan Dershowitz
I think, even if Barr were hypothetically to refuse to issue anything, there would be no legal basis for a court to compel him to do that,
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factcheck.org
The federal code states that at the conclusion of a special counsel’s investigation, he must provide the acting attorney general with a confidential report explaining decisions about whether or not prosecutions are warranted. The acting attorney general could decide to make that report public. According to the code, the “Attorney General may determine that public release of these reports would be in the public interest, to the extent that release would comply with applicable legal restrictions.”
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Vice News
The process: The new rules put more power in the hands of the attorney general — including the right to decide how much of the investigator’s concluding document would ever see the light of day. Specifically, the old rules had called for the independent counsel to submit a report directly to Congress that documented any “substantial and credible information that an impeachable offense may have been committed” — a standard Ken Starr himself later described as a “surprisingly low threshold of evidence.”
The power: Now, the only thing that the attorney general had to share with Congress was a notification that the special counsel’s investigation was over, and a list of every time the AG had overruled the special counsel.

The new rules required a “confidential” final report to be sent to the attorney general, granting the AG near-total discretion over how much of that final report should be shared with anyone else.
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Even the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee has said Barr is "required" to provide the report to him, but he hasn't shown any rules, regulations or laws to back up his claim.
 
Balancing the public’s need to know against individual privacy and dignity interests is struck in a variety of ways in ordinary law enforcement investigations. Sometimes, like in the aftermath of the Ferguson, Mo., tragedy, an extensive public report is appropriate. Other times, it isn’t. Here, we are talking about credible concerns of wrongdoing by our nation’s most powerful man, and one who has not been shy about attacking the investigation itself. The idea that the special counsel regulations, which were written to provide the public with confidence against a coverup, would empower an attorney general to restrict disclosure in an investigation of the president is a nonstarter.
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The public must have confidence that justice was done, and the attorney general cannot treat an investigation of the president the way he can treat any other investigation, precisely because of the sweeping prosecution powers the president wields.
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Neal Katyal - Drafter of the Special Counsel Regulations
 
Fast Eddie B said:
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FTFY.

Again.
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But her emails. :rolleyes:

I'm not saying the boss boffing an intern was no big deal. But are you trying to equate Clinton's bad behavior with the friggin' Russians up to their asses in the POTUS election?

Are you trying to make perjury the crime of the century? Worse than the Russians manipulating the US elections?

Think about that for a minute before you try to defend your position. I'd like to hear a reasonable rationalization for equating those crimes.
 
smartcooky said:
Neal Katyal - Drafter of the Special Counsel Regulations
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Did she point out in the regulations she drafted exactly where the AG is required to release the report to Congress? Until she does, her opinion is a nonstarter.
 
From a link above:
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Asked about reports that members of Mueller's team were unhappy with his handling of the report, Barr said he suspected any discontent may have reflected their desire to put out more information.
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Now that's an oddly candid reply. Isn't he acknowledging that there is more information to be had, and that he was ... economical with the truth?

So no collusion, meh. I thought that whole Trump Tower deal was a slender thread. At Trumpian levels of dishonesty, there doesn't need to be any explicit quid pro quo. You probably don't even need to talk about it. Trump will pass classified information on just to impress whoever he's talking to - Putin, Netanyahu, the Saudi guy. Was it in exchange for Russian help in the election? I don't think so. And obstruction of justice? Trump offered half a dozen reasons for firing Comey.

There's this, though: I believe Mueller did his duty as an investigator, thoroughly and conscientiously, and that he doesn't care much whether the report is ever released to the public. But I suspect he also feels a more abstract duty: fidelity to the law. He's a criminal prosecutor. Maybe Trump is just a bully and an oaf and a cheat, which aren't crimes. But money laundering, bribery, bank fraud, tax evasion - there are probably plenty of avenues of pursuit that have been passed on to other agencies. I'd rather have Trump dead to rights on crimes like that, something more substantial than Donald Jr.'s idiocy, Trump Sr.'s big fat mouth, Jared Kushner's general smarminess etc. If Trump didn't leave any tracks, I'd be shocked, because while he is cunning I don't think he's that clever.

If I'm right, there may well be criminal investigations that are on hold right now. I don't think we're going to indict a sitting president. But anti-racketeering investigators play a long game. There's at least some chance that after his presidency, he will be hit with charges of serious financial crimes and aggressive civil forfeiture proceedings. Trump Tower would be a nice place to start, being at the center of the whole kerfuffle.
 
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Important sidestep: I advise employers (and yes, they pay me) about worker safety law and worker's comp in WA State. Both sets of regulations fall under the department of Labor and Industries.

There are many outright contradictions in the laws. It's common in legislation.

All this insistence that the X law says Y does not mean there is some absolute declaration in X law. Legislation is simply not that perfect. There may very well be overlapping laws that differ. That's why we need the courts to make judgements.
 
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Minoosh said:
From a link above:
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Asked about reports that members of Mueller's team were unhappy with his handling of the report, Barr said he suspected any discontent may have reflected their desire to put out more information.
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If they feel sufficiently unhappy, they could always leak the report themselves. I'd like to see the Democrats offer to indemnify against prosecution anyone who would offer to leak it to Congress.
 
Bogative said:
To the AG, according to the link I provided earlier.


Yes and yes, according to the link I provided earlier.
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The link to Senate Judiciary Committee letter is referring to the summary that the AG must give to Congress:
The regulations provide that the special counsel must submit a report to the Attorney General at the conclusion of the special counsel’s investigation explaining the special counsel’s prosecutorial decisions—including any decisions not to prosecute. Under the regulations, that report is strictly “confidential.”
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So the AG report is not confidential FROM Congress, it’s going to Congress. That link does not say that an investigation like the Mueller report must be confidential FROM Congress. It’s talking about the AG report which is obviously not confidential from Congress because it’s going to Congress.

ETA again, that the AG is not required to hand over anything to Congress under some law or DOJ ruling does not mean that other laws might not give Congress the right to get it.
 
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smartcooky said:
If they feel sufficiently unhappy, they could always leak the report themselves. I'd like to see the Democrats offer to indemnify against prosecution anyone who would offer to leak it to Congress.
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Looks better if it appears it's coming from the White House.
 
Paul2 said:
So the AG report is not confidential FROM Congress, it’s going to Congress.
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Correct.


That link does not say that an investigation like the Mueller report must be confidential FROM Congress. It’s talking about the AG report which is obviously not confidential from Congress because it’s going to Congress.
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I posted the wrong link. This link requires that the Special Counsel to turn over the confidential report to the Attorney General, no one else.

ETA again, that the AG is not required to hand over anything to Congress under some law or DOJ ruling does not mean that other laws might not give Congress the right to get it.
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The AG is required to inform the chairman and ranking members of both congressional judiciary committees that he has received the special counsel's report, that is all. He is not required to give them anything from the report, including a summary.

Can you show the law that will allow Congress the right to get it? Nobody else has.
 
Bogative said:
Correct.





I posted the wrong link. This link requires that the Special Counsel to turn over the confidential report to the Attorney General, no one else.



The AG is required to inform the chairman and ranking members of both congressional judiciary committees that he has received the special counsel's report, that is all. He is not required to give them anything from the report, including a summary.



Can you show the law that will allow Congress the right to get it? Nobody else has.
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Numerous court cases affirm Congress has investigative powers implied in its oversight mandate, role as check on the executive, and responsibility to impeach and remove when called for. It cannot possibly fulfill those functions without a subpoena power enforced by a contempt charge (a compulsory ruling, not a punitive ruling, which is an important distinction).

On the other hand, Congress has absolutely no authority in criminal investigations (other than turning over evidence to whatever appropriate executive branch agency).

Though, the real strategy is to "move the show" as it's known. If they compel Barr to turn over documents, they force Trump to throw Barr under the bus or invoke executive privilege. Either way, they change the venue in the narrative from the DOJ to the West Wing.
 
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quadraginta said:
From the link;

Giuliani also dismissed claims by members of Mueller’s team that Barr’s four-page summary of Mueller’s findings misrepresented the results of the probe, saying that if the report contained damaging information, Mueller’s team would have provided specific details.​


I don't understand what this means. They were provided the report. If it contains specific details then they already have them.

What kind of gibberish is this?
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The wording of that sentence is a bit confusing unless you already know what it is saying.

Giuliani said that if the Mueller report had really damaging information on obstruction of justice, then the people on Mueller’s team who told the New York Times that Barr's summary was misleading would have provided the Times with specific examples of that damaging information and the Times would have reported those specific details.
 
DevilsAdvocate said:
The wording of that sentence is a bit confusing unless you already know what it is saying.

Giuliani said that if the Mueller report had really damaging information on obstruction of justice, then the people on Mueller’s team who told the New York Times that Barr's summary was misleading would have provided the Times with specific examples of that damaging information and the Times would have reported those specific details.
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Which is of course, nonsense. Providing specific information from the report would almost certainly be legally actionable.
 
I like how the internet lawyering in this thread has stepped up to the level where Random Internet Stranger #3,739 is claiming to know more about the law than the person who actually wrote the law in question.
 
Trump Tweets

“The underlying issue remains the same without a single American being indicted for Collusion with Russia, & that is a stunning end considering we were led to believe (Fake News) that something much more dramatic would happen. Why did people fall for this?” @TuckerCarlson Molly H
 
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