Published by Chief Editor, Sammy Campbell. Researched and written by Mark Pullen
I didn’t know much on this subject. I read many articles on this subject. Many of the articles conflicted with the other articles. I then read the president’s powers as laid out in Article II of the Constitution. Finally, I read William Barr’s memo to Rod Rosenstein on the subject of obstruction of justice by a president. The memo is nineteen pages long. Barr usage of Latin phrases made the review slow. I was skeptical that Barr’s memo’s preamble could be proved as accurate in case law and constitutionally. Barr’s facts in this memo best line up with what the Founding Fathers of our nation intended, in my opinion. I urge you to read Barr’s memo for yourself.
The President is the SOLE executive in the Executive branch and ALL authority emanates from him. All of his subordinates are extensions of himself, hence as intended by the Founding Fathers, he is accountable for their actions. The President is also the chief law enforcement official. He cannot obstruct justice by exercising the powers of his office, even by directing investigations that he has a personal stake in. There is one caveat to that, however, by doing so, he may be guilty of the charge of abuse of power and he can be impeached. The President is the Executive Branch of our government, solely accountable to the people.
A hypothetical case for obstruction of justice by the President. If the President told a person to destroy files that showed the president did commit a crime, that would be the crime of obstruction of justice.
A hypothetical case for the crime of abuse of power. Let’s pretend that President Trump entered into a conspiracy with Vladimir Putin to kill his political opponent, Hillary Clinton. Paul Manafort has knowledge of this conspiracy. Manafort is being tried for other crimes, but the investigators get a tip on this conspiracy. The President finds out about the new development and issues a pardon to Manafort in exchange for his silence. That’s the crime of abuse of power, not obstruction of justice.
In both hypothetical cases, the President would be removed from the office of the presidency by impeachment in the Senate and convicted. Then the President could be charged for those crimes in a civilian court. While it’s true that persons can commit obstruction of justice when they are being investigated for a crime that they did not commit. Seldom are those charges brought forward.
Yes, President Trump is not above the law, but he isn’t below the law either. President Trump, by taking the oath of office, did not give up his rights as a citizen. He has the right to free speech. He has the right not to testify against himself. He has the right to the presumption of innocence. And he has the right to mount a vigorous defense.
Yes, President Trump did commit some unforced errors during this investigation’s span of time. All those errors were of a desperate unjustly prosecuted person.
Imagine a man that is about to be hung in the old west for murder. The man resists every step toward the gallows. The man pleads his innocence as he resists. Finally, his head is placed through the noose. Just then, a group of citizens drags a man before the judge at the gallows. The citizens show the missing murder weapon they found in the man’s possession and relate to the judge that he had been bragging how he killed the man in a saloon in the next town.
There is no doubt that the citizens have the right man and the judge acknowledges this as so. The judge then turns toward the gallows and tells the Sheriff to carry out the sentence. The crowd screams, why? The judge responds: He obstructed justice by not walking without resistance to the gallows and he verbally assaulted the court by proclaiming his innocence. That is what Robert Mueller did to President Trump in the way he wrote his report. And that’s what the Democrats are doing right now.
Mueller or his team wrote: “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.” The Special Counsel Office wrote that sentence in violation of how our justice system works. Mueller’s job was to find enough to charge the President with a crime, not to exonerate him. The President has the presumption of innocence. Mueller didn’t have the evidence to bring any charge for any crime against President Trump. There are those that will cite the Department of Justice guidelines that state a sitting president can’t be indicted. While that’s true, Mueller would have stated that the President did commit a crime if there had been enough evidence to do so. Then it would have been up to Congress to remove President Trump from office. If Mueller had been an honest broker of justice, he would have caused this sentence to be written thusly: “This report does not conclude that the President committed a crime.”
I believe in less than four months, Robert Mueller knew Donald Trump had not conspired with any person in Russia to affect the 2016 election. I further believe Robert Mueller delayed his findings in order to frustrate President Trump. In my opinion, Mueller was hoping that President Trump’s frustration would become so elevated that President Trump would commit an error for which he could be impeached and convicted in the Senate. Even though William Barr has said he didn’t set up a limit time for Mueller’s investigation, I think that is a half-truth.
I suspect this is what happened: Barr went into the Office of the Special Counsel and opened file cabinet drawers. Barr saw the collusion-conspiracy question had been answered long ago. Barr then confronted Mueller. Mueller said he would end the investigation voluntarily. We have some indications of this from Peter Strzok’s text messages. He tells Lisa Page in relation to Trump colluding with the Russians after Mueller is appointed, “There is no there, there.” In March of 2017, the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, told Chuck Todd he hadn’t seen any evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians.
Strzok either opened the surveillance on Donald Trump or encouraged it. This countersurveillance operation was called, CrossFire-Hurricane. It was officially opened in late July of 2016. All those months of surveillance before Mueller was appointed on May 17th of 2017 did not glean any evidence of a conspiracy between Candidate Trump or any member of his campaign. We have a text message from Strzok to Page that suggests the surveillance on Donald Trump started as early as December 28th of 2015.
Read or download Barr’s memo to Rod Rosenstein on the question if a president can obstruct justice by carrying out his duties as president here>https://www.lawfareblog.com/document-william-barr-memo-obstruction-investigation