A federal appeals court has ordered the DOJ to release their secret memo on whether Trump obstructed justice in the Mueller investigation.
The unanimous panel decision issued Friday echoes that of a lower court judge, Amy Berman Jackson, who last year accused the Justice Department of dishonesty in its justifications for keeping the memo hidden.
Department officials argued that the document was protected because it concerned internal deliberations over whether to charge Trump with obstructing special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s probe of the 2016 Trump campaign’s relationship with Russia. But the judges agreed with Jackson that the record clearly showed that Mueller had already concluded that a sitting president could not be charged with a crime.
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The memo in question is the one that then attorney general William Barr used to undercut the Mueller report before it was released. Mueller did find substantial evidence that Trump obstructed justice in the Russia investigation, but Mueller also concluded that a sitting president could not be charged with a crime.
After the DOJ turns over the memo, CREW tweeted that they would make it public:
BREAKING: We won! We're going to get the secret memo Barr used to undercut the Mueller Report and claim it was insufficient to find Trump obstructed justice. And we're going to make it public.
— Citizens for Ethics (@CREWcrew) August 19, 2022
The same Republicans who have been calling for more DOJ transparency after the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago should be thrilled that a secret DOJ memo used to undercut Mueller’s findings on Trump obstructing justice is about to be made public but they won’t be thrilled. The howls of “fake news” will echo from sea to shining sea.
The memo should provide insight into how Trump and Barr corrupted the DOJ and did all that they could to undercut Mueller’s findings related to the now-former president obstructing justice.
Mueller believed that Barr and Trump misrepresented his report, and soon the American people would see the secret memo behind the misrepresentation.
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
