WH Lawyer Told Barr That Mueller Should’ve Reached Obstruction Decision

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 09: Acting White House Counsel Emmet Flood walks in the halls of the Russell Senate Office Building before heading into the offices of Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr on C... WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 09: Acting White House Counsel Emmet Flood walks in the halls of the Russell Senate Office Building before heading into the offices of Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr on Capitol Hill January 09, 2019 in Washington, DC. President Donald Trump appointed Flood to temporarily serve as White House counsel after Don McGahn resigned last year. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) MORE LESS
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On the day after the redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report was released to the public, White House lawyer Emmet Flood wrote to Attorney General William Barr to “memorialize concerns” related to the probe, including a frustration that Mueller didn’t make a decision on whether President Trump obstructed justice.

“In closing its investigation, the SCO (special counsel’s office) had only one job — to ‘provide the attorney general with a confidential report explaining the prosecution or declination decisions reached by the special counsel,'” he wrote in the letter obtained by CNN. “Yet the one thing the SCO was obligated to do is the very thing the SCO — intentionally and unapologetically — refused to do.”

Flood also complained about Mueller’s team making “political” statements, like concluding it couldn’t reach a decision on obstruction nor exonerate President Trump and going beyond the scope of what the office was supposed to probe.

“In the American justice system, innocence is presumed, there is no ‘need’ for prosecutors to ‘conclusively determine’ it,” he said. “The special counsel and his staff failed in their duty to act as prosecutors and only as prosecutors.”

Read the letter via CNN here.

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Notable Replies

  1. So here’s how GOP talkingpoints pass around: WH–DOJ–FOX–Congress GOP–deplorable base(with many interactions in between)
    The very structure of dictatorship.

  2. Hmmmm…interesting that all of a sudden letters are mysteriously surfacing.

    Sounds like somebody somewhere is getting tired of listening to the lies floating around and has decided to “unredact” a bunch of stuff for the public.

    Maybe the Chinese are in on it…?

  3. Had Mueller and the SCO reached a decision to indict Trump on obstruction charges, the WH would be condemning them for overreach, i.e. acting outside of DOJ policy. They are trying to have it both ways.

  4. Flood and his gang merit no presumption of innocence.

  5. “In closing its investigation, the SCO (special counsel’s office) had only one job — to ‘provide the attorney general with a confidential report explaining the prosecution or declination decisions reached by the special counsel…Yet the one thing the SCO was obligated to do is the very thing the SCO — intentionally and unapologetically — refused to do.”

    The Trump administration seems to have mistaken Bob Mueller for a doormat.

    Keep whacking the hornet’s nest, dumbasses.

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