Fogbow

A federal judge has ordered the Department of Justice (DOJ) to release a March 2019 legal memo clearing former President Trump of potential obstruction of justice charges following the Mueller investigation, with the judge accusing former Attorney General William Barr and agency lawyers of deceiving the public.

District Judge Amy Berman Jackson on Monday ordered the DOJ to release the legal memo within two weeks in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the liberal watchdog group Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington (CREW).

The DOJ had argued in court that the full memo — portions of which have already been released — should be withheld because it falls under exceptions to the public records law for attorney-client privilege and deliberative government decisionmaking.

But Jackson said on Monday that those claims were not consistent with her own review of the unredacted memo or the timeline revealed by internal emails among top Justice Department officials.

The Trump Justice Department secretly obtained Washington Post journalists’ phone records and tried to obtain their email records over reporting they did in the early months of the Trump administration on Russia’s role in the 2016 election, according to government letters and officials.

In three separate letters dated May 3 and addressed to Post reporters Ellen Nakashima and Greg Miller, and former Post reporter Adam Entous, the Justice Department wrote they were “hereby notified that pursuant to legal process the United States Department of Justice received toll records associated with the following telephone numbers for the period from April 15, 2017 to July 31, 2017.” The letters listed work, home or cellphone numbers covering that three-and-a-half-month period.

Cameron Barr, The Post’s acting executive editor, said: “We are deeply troubled by this use of government power to seek access to the communications of journalists. The Department of Justice should immediately make clear its reasons for this intrusion into the activities of reporters doing their jobs, an activity protected under the First Amendment.”

News organizations and First Amendment advocates have long decried the government practice of seizing journalists’ records in an effort to identify the sources of leaks, saying it unjustly chills critical newsgathering. The last such high-profile seizure of reporters’ communications records came several years ago as part of an investigation into the source of stories by a reporter who worked at BuzzFeed, Politico and the New York Times. The stories at issue there also centered around 2017 reporting on the investigation into Russian election interference.

MsDaisy wrote: ↑Sat May 08, 2021 11:01 am Out of all of Trump's enablers I seriously dislike Barr the most, and for the life of me I can't understand why he did it.

Uninformed wrote: ↑Sat May 08, 2021 4:53 pm Off the wall stuff, but why did the DFO put so many of his sycophants into the DoD not long before the end of his reign?

MsDaisy wrote: ↑Sat May 08, 2021 11:01 am
Trump Justice Department secretly obtained Post reporters’ phone records

The Trump Justice Department secretly obtained Washington Post journalists’ phone records and tried to obtain their email records over reporting they did in the early months of the Trump administration on Russia’s role in the 2016 election, according to government letters and officials.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national ... story.html

Update: What Durham is clearly pursuing is charging someone under 18 USC 798 for leaking signals intercepts that seeded three stories:

The David Ignatius story revealing Mike Flynn’s calls with Sergei Kislyak had been discovered
The WaPo story revealing that Jared Kushner’s effort to set up a back channel with Russia had been discovered
The WaPo story revealing that Jeff Sessions had lied when he said he hadn’t spoken to any Russians in his confirmation hearing

much ado wrote: ↑Sat May 08, 2021 2:57 pm But did anyone else notice that Barr seemed to pull back his zealous support of Trump sometime towards the end? Perhaps it was mid-2020, maybe later? I always wondered if he discovered something about Trump that he just could not be associated with. I wonder if he did discover something and what it might have been.

Maybenaut wrote: ↑Sat May 08, 2021 6:00 pm
I think, at a minimum, he looked in the mirror and was shocked to discover that he was a rat, and view out the porthole indicated that the ship was likely sinking.

Update: What Durham is clearly pursuing is charging someone under 18 USC 798 for leaking signals intercepts that seeded three stories:

The David Ignatius story revealing Mike Flynn’s calls with Sergei Kislyak had been discovered
The WaPo story revealing that Jared Kushner’s effort to set up a back channel with Russia had been discovered
The WaPo story revealing that Jeff Sessions had lied when he said he hadn’t spoken to any Russians in his confirmation hearing

tek wrote: ↑Sat May 08, 2021 6:09 pm Durham! there's a name we haven't heard for a while!

MsDaisy wrote: ↑Sat May 08, 2021 11:01 am Out of all of Trump's enablers I seriously dislike Barr the most, and for the life of me I can't understand why he did it.

much ado wrote: ↑Sat May 08, 2021 2:57 pm But did anyone else notice that Barr seemed to pull back his zealous support of Trump sometime towards the end? Perhaps it was mid-2020, maybe later? I always wondered if he discovered something about Trump that he just could not be associated with. I wonder if he did discover something and what it might have been.

jcolvin2 wrote: ↑Wed May 05, 2021 1:07 pm Judge Amy Berman Jackson issued an opinion on Monday in a FOIA case brought by CREW, regarding whether certain advice prepared by the OLE in connection with Barr's "summary" of the Mueller report was really pre-decisional (hint: fat chance!):
No FOIA Protection for Late Prepared OLE Advice

MINUTE ORDER. With its late night filing [32-1], the Department of Justice has complied with that portion of the Court's May 3, 2021 Order 26 calling for the disclosure of the first section of Document 15, which plainly reveals, as DOJ states for the first time in its 32 motion to stay, that after he received the Special Counsel's Report, the Attorney General was considering "electing" to opine on the question of whether the facts in the Special Counsel's Report would support a criminal prosecution, determining "what, if anything, to say to the public about that question" before releasing the Report to the public, and doing so with the understanding that any actual prosecution was constitutionally foreclosed. Plaintiff may submit any response to the defendant's motion to stay the disclosure of the remainder of the memorandum pending appeal by Friday, May 28, 2021. Signed by Judge Amy Berman Jackson on 5/25/21. (lcabj2) (Entered: 05/25/2021)

tek wrote: ↑Sat May 08, 2021 6:09 pm

Update: What Durham is clearly pursuing is charging someone under 18 USC 798 for leaking signals intercepts that seeded three stories:

The David Ignatius story revealing Mike Flynn’s calls with Sergei Kislyak had been discovered
The WaPo story revealing that Jared Kushner’s effort to set up a back channel with Russia had been discovered
The WaPo story revealing that Jeff Sessions had lied when he said he hadn’t spoken to any Russians in his confirmation hearing

Durham! there's a name we haven't heard for a while!

WASHINGTON—Special Counsel John Durham, appointed during the Trump administration to examine the origins of the FBI’s 2016 Russia probe, is presenting evidence to a grand jury and preparing a lengthy report expected to be completed in the coming months, according to people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Durham’s review, which began in May 2019, has led to one prosecution to date and has gone on longer than the two-year tenure of special counsel Robert Mueller, who in May 2017 took over the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Mr. Durham has been examining potential criminal charges against several lower-level FBI employees, and people who aren’t in government, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. Durham was also expected to deliver a report by the end of this summer, though that target is likely to be pushed back, some of the people said.

The special counsel regulations required Mr. Durham to have reported on the status of the investigation and submitted a proposed budget by July 1 for the next fiscal year that begins in October. Attorney General Merrick Garland could then determine whether the investigation would continue and establish the budget.

A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to say whether Mr. Garland has decided to allow Mr. Durham’s probe to continue beyond September or approved a budget for the next fiscal year, citing a policy of not commenting on ongoing investigations. In May, the Justice Department disclosed that the Durham investigation had spent around $1.5 million between October 2020 and March.

jcolvin2 wrote: ↑Sat May 08, 2021 6:18 pm

tek wrote: ↑Sat May 08, 2021 6:09 pm Durham! there's a name we haven't heard for a while!

Durham - Barr’s strategically planted Jacobin revenge time bomb

NEW: Prosecutor John Durham has told a cyber lawyer -- who works for the firm that repped Clinton campaign -- that he wants to indict him on suspicion of lying about who he repped when he told F.B.I. in '16 about potential ties b/w Trump and Russia.