Attorney General Barr announced during his press conference that Mueller found 10 potential instances of Trump obstruction of justice.
Barr said:
The special counsel’s report goes onto consider whether certain actions of the president could amount to obstruction of the special counsel’s investigation. As I addressed in my March 24th letter, the special counsel did not make a traditional prosecutor judgment regarding this allegation. Instead, the report recounts ten episodes involving the president and discusses potential legal theories for connecting those activities to the elements of an obstruction offense. After carefully reviewing the facts and legal theories outlined in the report, and in consultation with the office of legal counsel, and other department lawyers, the department attorney general and I concluded that the evidence developed by the special counsel is not sufficient to establish that the president committed an obstruction of justice offense.
Although the deputy attorney general and I disagreed with some of the special counsel’s legal theories and felt that some of the episodes examined did not amount to obstruction as a matter of law, we did not rely solely on that in making our decision. Instead, we accepted the special counsel’s legal framework for purposes of our analysis and evaluated the evidence as presented by the special counsel in reaching our conclusions.
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The alarm bells should be going off for Congress. Now, we know why Trump and the Trump and the Republicans don’t want the full report to be released or turned over to Congress. Mueller presented evidence and legal theories that Trump obstructed justice, but Barr dismissed them all. Congress must have the full Mueller report, as the impeachment clock has clearly begun to count down on Trump.
Mueller must testify, and the House needs to see the full report in order to consider impeaching Donald Trump.
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Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
