Secret William Barr memo saying not to charge Trump must be released, judge says

[pppolitics]

(CNN) -- A federal judge this week rejected the Justice Department's attempts to keep secret a departmental opinion to not charge former President Donald Trump with obstruction at the end of the Mueller investigation, calling the administration's lawyers "disingenuous."

The department had argued in court that the largely redacted March 2019 memo was legal reasoning that helped then-Attorney General William Barr make a decision about Trump. But federal Judge Amy Berman Jackson said she believed Barr and his advisers had already decided they wouldn't charge the President with a crime before he got the written advice, and the memo was partly strategic planning instead of legal reasoning -- and therefore could be made public.

The decision adds to the criticism federal judges and others have had about Barr and his handling of the end of the Mueller investigation. Jackson and others have repeatedly questioned Barr's motives to keep documents related to the investigation -- including Mueller's findings and Barr's reactions to them -- secret or by delaying their release.

"The agency's redactions and incomplete explanations obfuscate the true purpose of the memorandum, and the excised portions belie the notion that it fell to the Attorney General to make a prosecution decision or that any such decision was on the table at any time," Jackson wrote in a 35-page opinion released Tuesday.

...]

https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/04/politics/william-barr-memo-trump-memo/index.html

[Badger]

Why in he'll is Biden and Garland having the DOJ fight this? Not for the need to politically embarrass Trump (almost redundant at this point), but because any good government advocate must realize that Trump and Barr ran the DOJ like Trump's personal mob family firm. The misuse and abuse that ran rampant the last four years must be fully revealed to the public!

[Yoda]

Always found it super suspect that when the Mueller report was submitted to DOJ that it took Billy Barr all of about 15 minutes to be like, "Through careful and exhaustive consultation with DOJ lawyers we have determined that all of the criming that trump committed to obstruct the investigation so thoroughly documented in this report does not rise to the level of a crime." Right....

[President Johnson]

Barr was the worst Attorney General since Mitchell.

https://twitter.com/CNNPolitics/status/1390021238412750852

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Barr was the worst Attorney General since Mitchell.

https://twitter.com/CNNPolitics/status/1390021238412750852

Ed Meese would like a word

[brucejoel99]

Already a thread on this beforehand. Mods, please merge:

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=441627.0

[brucejoel99]

Why in he'll is Biden and Garland having the DOJ fight this? Not for the need to politically embarrass Trump (almost redundant at this point), but because any good government advocate must realize that Trump and Barr ran the DOJ like Trump's personal mob family firm. The misuse and abuse that ran rampant the last four years must be fully revealed to the public!

Just spit-balling here but theoretically speaking, the memo might potentially suggest criminality that's tied to ongoing investigations & pending cases (e.g., Giuliani's, etc.), meaning the release of the memo right now could result in a situation wherein the DOJ would need to be accelerate said cases & potentially fast-track indictments at a faster rate that they were otherwise prepared for. Who knows, though?