Newly Released OLC Memo Shows Staff Lawyers Found No Basis For Obstruction Charges In Mueller Report

Critics had sought the memo as the "Smoking gun" to show how former Attorney General Bill Barr scuttled any obstruction charges against Donald Trump.

Before his confirmation hearing, a memo was released that Barr wrote to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

The memo states that the prosecutors reviewed the Mueller evidence and concluded that the evidence "Examined by the Special Counsel could not, as a matter of law, support an obstruction charge under the circumstances. Accordingly, were there no constitutional barriers, we would recommend, under the Principles of Federal Prosecution, that you decline to commence such a prosecution." In plain English, that means that the prosecutors came to the same conclusion as Barr that the alleged conduct did not satisfy the elements of this crime.

In issuing his controversial summary of the report, Jackson said Barr suggested that he had little time to review the whole Mueller report when "[t]he fact that he would not be prosecuted was a given.

The controversy of Barr's summary largely focused on a couple lines where he said that the underlying facts from by Mueller would not satisfy the elements of the crime of obstruction.

Past hearings established that Barr and Rosenstein told Mueller that they wanted his staff to flag grand jury material because Barr wanted to release the redacted report rather than a summary.

If Mueller had flagged and redacted the grand jury material, the redacted report could have been released without much delay as Barr preferred.
 

https://jonathanturley.org/2021/05/26/newly-released-olc-memo-shows-staff-lawyers-found-not-basis-for-obstruction-charges-in-mueller-report/