Attorney General William Barr is at the center of a political and legal storm.
Robert Mueller put the heat on Barr by making it clear he believed Trump obstructed justice and should be removed from office.
And now William Barr left Donald Trump speechless with this fact about impeachment.
Mueller turned Washington upside down by making a public spectacle of his findings with a press conference and a call for Congress to impeach the President.
The special counsel made it clear Mueller and his team believed President Trump obstructed justice by outrageously claiming the President was guilty until proven innocent and that he could not “exonerate” Donald Trump.
Mueller claimed his team made no determination on obstruction of justice because the Department of Justice guidelines prevent the indictment of a sitting President.
“It explains that under long-standing Department policy, a President cannot be charged with a federal crime while he is in office. That is unconstitutional. Even if the charge is kept under seal and hidden from public view—that too is prohibited,” Mueller continued.
“The Special Counsel’s Office is part of the Department of Justice and, by regulation, it was bound by that Department policy. Charging the President with a crime was therefore not an option we could consider.”
This was a cop out.
Mueller didn’t have a case on obstruction of justice.
When Ken Starr published his report on the investigation into Bill Clinton in 1998, he stated that Bill Clinton was guilty of obstructing justice.
But Mueller’s investigation was always about impeachment, so he smeared the President by detailing all of the special counsel’s accusations against President Trump without accusing Trump of a crime.
William Barr called Mueller’s actions out for the farce that they were.
In an interview with CBS News, Barr told Jan Crawford that he believed Mueller could have made a determination on obstruction of justice.
“I personally felt he could’ve reached a decision…He could have reached a conclusion. The opinion says you cannot indict a president while he is in office, but he could’ve reached a decision as to whether it was criminal activity. But he had his reasons for not doing it, which he explained and I am not going to, you know, argue about those reasons.”
Barr knew exactly what Mueller was up to.
And even though the Attorney General tried to appear deferential to Mueller’s decision making, Barr’s message was unmistakable.
In another part of his CBS interview, Barr also hinted that rogue actors like Mueller needed to be called out for their actions.
Barr told Crawford that for all the talk of Trump “violating norms,” it was really Trump’s opponents who put democracy at risk by taking “resisting” the President to the extreme.
It was impossible not to think Mueller was one of those offenders.
Prosecutors do not exonerate suspects.
Their job is to bring charges and work under a system where all Americans are innocent until proven guilty.
Mueller did not adhere to that fundamental American value.
And Attorney General Barr called him out for his attack on constitutional norms on national television.
We will keep you up to date on any new developments in this ongoing story.
