Robert Mueller, Former F.B.I. Director, Is Named Special Counsel for Russia Investigation

McGahn should not testify and Mueller should testify only if he is comfortable doing so, with respect for established DOJ restrictions on what he can discuss under the law:

Mueller Testimony Must Follow DOJ Policy Not To Discuss Derogatory Information On Unindicted Person

Former House Oversight Committee chairman Trey Gowdy and former independent counsel Ken Starr join FNC's Martha MacCallum to discuss what House Democrats can expect out of a Mueller hearing:

MARTHA MACCALLUM, FOX NEWS: Do you think that Robert Mueller should testify?

REP. TREY GOWDY: Well, it's going to be hard. He is not going to have a lot to have say because DOJ policy does not allow him to discuss derogatory information against an uncharged person. So what the Democrats want is for him to painstakingly go through all of the information he had that led to obstruction, or that they think leads to obstruction, and the conclusion is he didn't indict him. So DOJ policy doesn't allow that conversation. I'm not sure what else he can talk about.

MACCALLUM: So you are saying the unredacted information is the one thing they don't already have. Because everything else is already in the report, correct? There is not much he could add to that.

GOWDY: Well, even the unredacted information, I mean, some of it by law he cannot discuss. Lots of it by law he cannot discuss. But even what is unredacted, the Department of Justice policy is you cannot discuss derogatory information against someone you did not indict. The department doesn't speak in press conferences and reports. They use indictments. Either indict or shut up. And he didn't indict.

MACCALLUM: One of the things that they would probably love to ask Robert Mueller, Ken Starr, is about his decision not to indict and whether or not it was completely separate from the issue of whether or not can you indict a sitting president. We heard from the Attorney General Bill Barr. And he said there were several instances where several people were in the room and Robert Mueller said clearly, according to Bill Barr's testimony, I'm not worried about the OLC decision, the Office of Legal Counsel decision. I put that aside and decided whether or not we can indict or different not to indict. If he has a different story than that, that will be news.

KEN STARR: Yes, in fact, I think he will not say that because he had his opportunity, that very elaborate report, 446 pages, so, he has got to stick with the report. He can't have a latter-day inspiration. And so in terms of the president, the president has the authority to direct Robert Mueller through Bill Barr not to testify. But I doubt that that's going to happen. I don't think that the president is going to cross his own attorney general, who I think has been doing a great job under this unremitting criticism. But, in terms of Bob Mueller, he has got to stay with what he has written. Those 446 pages, the redactions, I have been through these, not the redactions, but I have seen where the redactions are. 10% of book one, which is the real book that's on Russian collusion there was no collusion. There were contacts, not collusion. Let's face it the name of the game now is do we impeach. This is what the House of Representatives is all about. Book two.
​

This will still allow Mueller the flexibility to say whether he believes that Barr's report and the release of Mueller's lightly redacted report misrepresented his own report. It will also allow him to give general thoughts on obstruction of justice theories and what he thinks about those.

But Mueller has had his direct crack at President Trump and there will not be much more he can say during testimony before Congress about that.

This testimony - if it happens - is almost certainly going to be yet another big nothingburger.

 

gowdy is not being complete in his answer.

28 CFR § 50.2 - Release of information by personnel of the Department of Justice relating to criminal and civil proceedings.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/28/50.2

Of course, barr has hired to block any criminal charge against trump, so he will undoubtedly choose to block this one as well.

 

And now, trump is trying to bury the Mueller report...

 

Trump ... not your father's Nixon.

 

Invoking Executive Privilege over the ENTIRE Mueller Report....

Yeah.... that doesn't look NOT guilty at all.

 

How does one go about overturning laughable claims of executive privilege?

 

What a lie. As you know very well, about 95% of it has already been provided to congress, published and released to the public. The only parts that have not been released - per Rod Rosenstein - are those parts that cannot be released by law, such as grand jury testimony.

 

edit

 

Blocking mcgahn or parts of the report to security cleared congress totally doesnt feel like obstruction.

 

You can not obstruct if you are King The Donald.

 

We are blocking access to a report that exonerates him!!

 

tillman and teflon don should write a book about credit.

too bad it would end with the real seed coming names like deripaska,maceo et al. Not much art or 'sport' there folks.

 

Pretty dumb idea by Trump. He real thinks his base will carry him in 2020?

I don't think there are that many Trump die hards that will make is to 2020.

 

Political exhaustion works. Just ask Hillary Clinton.

That’s why I’ve been talking in the 2020 threads about how I’m hoping for a fresh face in 2020.

Trumps whole transparent strategy is to continue to double down on his hardcore foxnews watching base, energize them to vote, and bloody up his opponent enough to exhaust the Obama/Trumper voters and cynical non-voters who hate all things politics into not voting or voting for Trump because of the fallacy of the economy relating to the current president.

If the Dem nominated is generally popular and a fresh face without scandal I think you’ll see a lot of people say I’m sick of the scandals every day... enough of this jackass. Most people are already exhausted with Trump scandals... they just don’t yet see any realistic alternative yet. Dems have to present that alternative.

 

Trump is trying to goad the House Dems to impeach him, so that the Senate Repubs will "exonerate" him.

When the Repubs impeached Clinton, they lost politically.

 

Yeah because Americans didn't view sex in the oval office as a slight to Americans. Trump has actively disgraced the constitution multiple times.

 

This is flat factually wrong. Not a matter of interpretation, just wrong. The Mueller Report itself explains the reasoning to not indict as follows:

1. It is impermissible to indict a sitting President.
2. But it is okay to investigate a sitting President to preserve the fact base.
3. Because a sitting President cannot be indicted, it would be unfair to the President to indicate that he had committed crimes but not give him an opportunity to clear his name in court. So refraining from naming a crime committed by a sitting President is a derivative of the rule against indicting him.
4. But the opposite, a finding of no crime, could be announced -- but that didn't happen.

I think @NewRoxFan erred by citing a secondary source to you. Here is the text from the primary source, the Mueller Report, with his name on the cover, in the Introduction to Volume II. It's long, but I didn't want you to think I was pulling any tricks by selectively quoting. So, I did some highlighting to make it easier on you:

First, a traditional prosecution or declination decision entails a binary determination to initiate or decline a prosecution, but we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment. The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has issued an opinion finding that "the indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would impermissibly undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions" in violation of "the constitutional separation of powers."1 Given the role of the Special Counsel as an attorney in the Department of Justice and the framework of the Special Counsel regulations, see 28 U.S.C. § 515; 28 C.F.R. § 600.7(a), this Office accepted OLC's legal conclusion for the purpose of exercising prosecutorial jurisdiction. And apart from OLC's constitutional view, we recognized that a federal criminal accusation against a sitting President would place burdens on the President's capacity to govern and potentially preempt constitutional processes for addressing presidential misconduct.2

Second, while the OLC opinion concludes that a sitting President may not be prosecuted, it recognizes that a criminal investigation during the President's term is permissible. 3 The OLC opinion also recognizes that a President does not have immunity after he leaves office.4 And if individuals other than the President committed an obstruction offense, they may be prosecuted at this time. Given those considerations, the facts known to us, and the strong public interest in safeguarding the integrity of the criminal justice system, we conducted a thorough factual investigation in order to preserve the evidence when memories were fresh and documentary materials were available.

Third, we considered whether to evaluate the conduct we investigated under the Justice Manual standards governing prosecution and declination decisions, but we determined not to apply an approach that could potentially result in a judgment that the President committed crimes. The threshold step under the Justice Manual standards is to assess whether a person's conduct "constitutes a federal offense." U.S. Dep't of Justice, Justice Manual§ 9-27.220 (2018) (Justice Manual). Fairness concerns counseled against potentially reaching that judgment when no charges can be brought. The ordinary means for an individual to respond to an accusation is through a speedy and public trial, with all the procedural protections that surround a criminal case. An individual who believes he was wrongly accused can use that process to seek to clear his name. In contrast, a prosecutor's judgment that crimes were committed, but that no charges will be brought, affords no such adversarial opportunity for public name-clearing before an impartial adjudicator. 5 The concerns about the fairness of such a determination would be heightened in the case of a sitting President, where a federal prosecutor's accusation of a crime, even in an internal report, could carry consequences that extend beyond the realm of criminal justice. OLC noted similar concerns about sealed indictments. Even if an indictment were sealed during the President's term, OLC reasoned, "it would be very difficult to preserve [an indictment's] secrecy," and if an indictment became public, "[t]he stigma and opprobrium" could imperil the President's ability to govern."6 Although a prosecutor's internal report would not represent a formal public accusation akin to an indictment, the possibility of the report's public disclosure and the absence of a neutral adjudicatory forum to review its findings counseled against potentially determining "that the person's conduct constitutes a federal offense." Justice Manual § 9-27.220.

Fourth, if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, however, we are unable to reach that judgment. The evidence we obtained about the President's actions and intent presents difficult issues that prevent us from conclusively determining that no criminal conduct occurred. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.​

 

You keep posting some version of this and it is completely and 100% FALSE.

You either have not read the report or you are purposely lying.

Mueller went out of his way to explain that he cannot and will not recommend charges against a sitting President and listed and explained exactly why. I have called you out on this point before and provided the examples straight from his report. Yet you continue to parrot this position, even though it has been factually proven to be FALSE.

At this point, it is no longer about "opinions", you are purposely lying.

 

Most everyone I know voted for Trump in 2016 but it was a lesser of two evils thing. Now, every single one of us are strong Trump supporters. Not only has Trump actually been an extremely good President, this manufactured ordeal and the **** show the left has been putting on drives people to support him.

 

LMAO. No it doesn't .why do you think 312939 democrats are trying to face him in 2020.

They knew he can easily be beat.