800+ Former Federal Prosecutors Are of One Mind

• 
  [*=1]The President’s efforts to fire Mueller and to falsify evidence about that effort
  • 
    [*=1]Firing Mueller would have seriously impeded the investigation of the President and his associates — obstruction in its most literal sense. Directing the creation of false government records in order to prevent or discredit truthful testimony is similarly unlawful.
  
  [*=1]The President’s efforts to limit the scope of Mueller’s investigation to exclude his conduct
  • 
    [*=1]The report describes multiple efforts by the president to curtail the scope of the Special Counsel’s investigation. As the report explains, "ubstantial evidence indicates that the President’s effort to have Sessions limit the scope of the Special Counsel’s investigation to future election interference was intended to prevent further investigative scrutiny of the President’s and his campaign’s conduct" — in other words, the President employed a private citizen to try to get the Attorney General to limit the scope of an ongoing investigation into the President and his associates.
    
    All of this conduct — trying to control and impede the investigation against the President by leveraging his authority over others — is similar to conduct we have seen charged against other public officials and people in powerful positions.
    
  
  
  [*=1]​The President’s efforts to prevent witnesses from cooperating with investigators probing him and his campaign.
  
  • 
    [*=1]The Special Counsel’s report establishes that the President tried to influence the decisions of both Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort with regard to cooperating with investigators. Some of this tampering and intimidation...was done in plain sight via tweets and public statements [and some] was done via private messages through private attorneys.

Xelor said:

Excerpts from Statement By Former Federal Prosecutors (emboldening and formatting by Xelor)

We are former federal prosecutors. We served under both Republican and Democratic administrations....at the Department of Justice.

Each of us believes that the conduct of President Trump described in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report would, in the case of any other person not covered by the Office of Legal Counsel policy against indicting a sitting President, result in multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice.

The Mueller report describes several acts that satisfy all of the elements for an obstruction charge: conduct that obstructed or attempted to obstruct the truth-finding process, as to which the evidence of corrupt intent and connection to pending proceedings is overwhelming. These include:

​

• 
  [*=1]The President’s efforts to fire Mueller and to falsify evidence about that effort
  • 
    [*=1]Firing Mueller would have seriously impeded the investigation of the President and his associates — obstruction in its most literal sense. Directing the creation of false government records in order to prevent or discredit truthful testimony is similarly unlawful.
  
  [*=1]The President’s efforts to limit the scope of Mueller’s investigation to exclude his conduct
  • 
    [*=1]The report describes multiple efforts by the president to curtail the scope of the Special Counsel’s investigation. As the report explains, "ubstantial evidence indicates that the President’s effort to have Sessions limit the scope of the Special Counsel’s investigation to future election interference was intended to prevent further investigative scrutiny of the President’s and his campaign’s conduct" — in other words, the President employed a private citizen to try to get the Attorney General to limit the scope of an ongoing investigation into the President and his associates.
    
    All of this conduct — trying to control and impede the investigation against the President by leveraging his authority over others — is similar to conduct we have seen charged against other public officials and people in powerful positions.
    
  
  
  [*=1]​The President’s efforts to prevent witnesses from cooperating with investigators probing him and his campaign.
  
  • 
    [*=1]The Special Counsel’s report establishes that the President tried to influence the decisions of both Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort with regard to cooperating with investigators. Some of this tampering and intimidation...was done in plain sight via tweets and public statements [and some] was done via private messages through private attorneys.

Of course, these aren’t the only acts of potential obstruction detailed by the Special Counsel. It would be well within the purview of normal prosecutorial judgment also to charge other acts detailed in the report.

We emphasize that these are not matters of close professional judgment...But, to look at these facts and say that a prosecutor could not probably sustain a conviction for obstruction of justice — the standard set out in Principles of Federal Prosecution — runs counter to logic and our experience.

As former federal prosecutors, we recognize that prosecuting obstruction of justice cases is critical because unchecked obstruction — which allows intentional interference with criminal investigations to go unpunished — puts our whole system of justice at risk. We believe strongly that, but for the OLC memo, the overwhelming weight of professional judgment would come down in favor of prosecution for the conduct outlined in the Mueller Report.​

Five days ago (May 6, 2019), 426 former federal prosecutors had signed the letter. As I write this post, over 800 former federal prosecutors who served in the DoJ during the Kennedy-to-Trump Administrations have signed the letter from which the above excerpts come. Just to put that 800+ figure in perspective, there are 94 US Attorneys districts/offices, which are the only offices from which DoJ federal prosecutor come.

To sum up: More former federal prosecutors than one can "shake a stick at" concur unequivocally that the US currently has an unindicted felon as its President. Period.

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Winston said:

America knows this, unfortunately it seems like it just can't be bothered.

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Xelor said:

Were we talking about one prosecutor here, a couple others there, I might countenance refutations of their professional expertise. But that's not what we're talking about and observing.

We're talking about 800+ of them from eras and Administrations from the early 1960s to the present. Old and young, Dem and GOP-er, and both from all around the country.

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Xelor said:

Does "America" know it? It doesn't seem like it to me.

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Common Sense 1 said:

Desperate people! What is this some type of justice by mob rule?
The president was not charged so please get over it. This is just like
the Russian collusion lie. If you want Trump out of office beat him at the
ballot box. You can smell the desperation from the left.
Trump will win reelection in 2020!!

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Winston said:

I honestly think it does, I have lost a lot of faith in people to do the right thing, really since Bush II.

Take all the excuses for Trump lying about a myriad of issues. It's the Stormy Daniels thing playing out all over again. Everyone knows Trump did it, lied about it, tried to cover it up, and broke campaign finance laws in the process. They just can't be bothered.

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AmNat said:

Perhaps if these people dislike democracy so much, they should move to China, or some other country where unelected bureaucrats have authority over elected leaders.

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AmNat said:

Again, we are still, for the moment at least, a democracy.

That means that the elected President has authority over the officials appointed by himself or his predecessors. He has full authority to dismiss any executive branch official and/or terminate any executive branch process not specifically required by law.

I'm sorry that democracy upsets you.

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AmNat said:

Liberals don't seem to understand the basic premise of democracy.

Democracy means that the people rule, through their elected leaders. It does not matter what lower executive branch officials think of their boss or the actions he's taken.

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Common Sense 1 said:

Desperate people! What is this some type of justice by mob rule?
The president was not charged so please get over it. This is just like
the Russian collusion lie. If you want Trump out of office beat him at the
ballot box. You can smell the desperation from the left.
Trump will win reelection in 2020!!

Click to expand...

Xelor said:

Excerpts from Statement By Former Federal Prosecutors (emboldening and formatting by Xelor)

We are former federal prosecutors. We served under both Republican and Democratic administrations....at the Department of Justice.

Each of us believes that the conduct of President Trump described in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report would, in the case of any other person not covered by the Office of Legal Counsel policy against indicting a sitting President, result in multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice.

The Mueller report describes several acts that satisfy all of the elements for an obstruction charge: conduct that obstructed or attempted to obstruct the truth-finding process, as to which the evidence of corrupt intent and connection to pending proceedings is overwhelming. These include:

​

• 
  [*=1]The President’s efforts to fire Mueller and to falsify evidence about that effort
  • 
    [*=1]Firing Mueller would have seriously impeded the investigation of the President and his associates — obstruction in its most literal sense. Directing the creation of false government records in order to prevent or discredit truthful testimony is similarly unlawful.
  
  [*=1]The President’s efforts to limit the scope of Mueller’s investigation to exclude his conduct
  • 
    [*=1]The report describes multiple efforts by the president to curtail the scope of the Special Counsel’s investigation. As the report explains, "ubstantial evidence indicates that the President’s effort to have Sessions limit the scope of the Special Counsel’s investigation to future election interference was intended to prevent further investigative scrutiny of the President’s and his campaign’s conduct" — in other words, the President employed a private citizen to try to get the Attorney General to limit the scope of an ongoing investigation into the President and his associates.
    
    All of this conduct — trying to control and impede the investigation against the President by leveraging his authority over others — is similar to conduct we have seen charged against other public officials and people in powerful positions.
    
  
  
  [*=1]​The President’s efforts to prevent witnesses from cooperating with investigators probing him and his campaign.
  
  • 
    [*=1]The Special Counsel’s report establishes that the President tried to influence the decisions of both Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort with regard to cooperating with investigators. Some of this tampering and intimidation...was done in plain sight via tweets and public statements [and some] was done via private messages through private attorneys.

Of course, these aren’t the only acts of potential obstruction detailed by the Special Counsel. It would be well within the purview of normal prosecutorial judgment also to charge other acts detailed in the report.

We emphasize that these are not matters of close professional judgment...But, to look at these facts and say that a prosecutor could not probably sustain a conviction for obstruction of justice — the standard set out in Principles of Federal Prosecution — runs counter to logic and our experience.

As former federal prosecutors, we recognize that prosecuting obstruction of justice cases is critical because unchecked obstruction — which allows intentional interference with criminal investigations to go unpunished — puts our whole system of justice at risk. We believe strongly that, but for the OLC memo, the overwhelming weight of professional judgment would come down in favor of prosecution for the conduct outlined in the Mueller Report.​

Five days ago (May 6, 2019), 426 former federal prosecutors had signed the letter. As I write this post, over 800 former federal prosecutors who served in the DoJ during the Kennedy-to-Trump Administrations have signed the letter from which the above excerpts come. Just to put that 800+ figure in perspective, there are 94 US Attorneys districts/offices, which are the only offices from which DoJ federal prosecutor come.

To sum up: More former federal prosecutors than one can "shake a stick at" concur unequivocally that the US currently has an unindicted felon as its President. Period.

Click to expand...

Xelor said:

Excerpts from Statement By Former Federal Prosecutors (emboldening and formatting by Xelor)

We are former federal prosecutors. We served under both Republican and Democratic administrations....at the Department of Justice.

Each of us believes that the conduct of President Trump described in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report would, in the case of any other person not covered by the Office of Legal Counsel policy against indicting a sitting President, result in multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice.

To sum up: More former federal prosecutors than one can "shake a stick at" concur unequivocally that the US currently has an unindicted felon as its President. Period.​

Click to expand...

Xelor said:

Excerpts from Statement By Former Federal Prosecutors (emboldening and formatting by Xelor)

We are former federal prosecutors. We served under both Republican and Democratic administrations....at the Department of Justice.

Each of us believes that the conduct of President Trump described in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report would, in the case of any other person not covered by the Office of Legal Counsel policy against indicting a sitting President, result in multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice.

The Mueller report describes several acts that satisfy all of the elements for an obstruction charge: conduct that obstructed or attempted to obstruct the truth-finding process, as to which the evidence of corrupt intent and connection to pending proceedings is overwhelming. These include:

​

• 
  [*=1]The President’s efforts to fire Mueller and to falsify evidence about that effort
  • 
    [*=1]Firing Mueller would have seriously impeded the investigation of the President and his associates — obstruction in its most literal sense. Directing the creation of false government records in order to prevent or discredit truthful testimony is similarly unlawful.
  
  [*=1]The President’s efforts to limit the scope of Mueller’s investigation to exclude his conduct
  • 
    [*=1]The report describes multiple efforts by the president to curtail the scope of the Special Counsel’s investigation. As the report explains, "ubstantial evidence indicates that the President’s effort to have Sessions limit the scope of the Special Counsel’s investigation to future election interference was intended to prevent further investigative scrutiny of the President’s and his campaign’s conduct" — in other words, the President employed a private citizen to try to get the Attorney General to limit the scope of an ongoing investigation into the President and his associates.
    
    All of this conduct — trying to control and impede the investigation against the President by leveraging his authority over others — is similar to conduct we have seen charged against other public officials and people in powerful positions.
    
  
  
  [*=1]​The President’s efforts to prevent witnesses from cooperating with investigators probing him and his campaign.
  
  • 
    [*=1]The Special Counsel’s report establishes that the President tried to influence the decisions of both Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort with regard to cooperating with investigators. Some of this tampering and intimidation...was done in plain sight via tweets and public statements [and some] was done via private messages through private attorneys.

Of course, these aren’t the only acts of potential obstruction detailed by the Special Counsel. It would be well within the purview of normal prosecutorial judgment also to charge other acts detailed in the report.

We emphasize that these are not matters of close professional judgment...But, to look at these facts and say that a prosecutor could not probably sustain a conviction for obstruction of justice — the standard set out in Principles of Federal Prosecution — runs counter to logic and our experience.

As former federal prosecutors, we recognize that prosecuting obstruction of justice cases is critical because unchecked obstruction — which allows intentional interference with criminal investigations to go unpunished — puts our whole system of justice at risk. We believe strongly that, but for the OLC memo, the overwhelming weight of professional judgment would come down in favor of prosecution for the conduct outlined in the Mueller Report.​

Five days ago (May 6, 2019), 426 former federal prosecutors had signed the letter. As I write this post, over 800 former federal prosecutors who served in the DoJ during the Kennedy-to-Trump Administrations have signed the letter from which the above excerpts come. Just to put that 800+ figure in perspective, there are 94 US Attorneys districts/offices, which are the only offices from which DoJ federal prosecutor come.

To sum up: More former federal prosecutors than one can "shake a stick at" concur unequivocally that the US currently has an unindicted felon as its President. Period.

Click to expand...

Xelor said:

Excerpts from Statement By Former Federal Prosecutors (emboldening and formatting by Xelor)

We are former federal prosecutors. We served under both Republican and Democratic administrations....at the Department of Justice.

Each of us believes that the conduct of President Trump described in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report would, in the case of any other person not covered by the Office of Legal Counsel policy against indicting a sitting President, result in multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice.

The Mueller report describes several acts that satisfy all of the elements for an obstruction charge: conduct that obstructed or attempted to obstruct the truth-finding process, as to which the evidence of corrupt intent and connection to pending proceedings is overwhelming. These include:

​

• 
  [*=1]The President’s efforts to fire Mueller and to falsify evidence about that effort
  • 
    [*=1]Firing Mueller would have seriously impeded the investigation of the President and his associates — obstruction in its most literal sense. Directing the creation of false government records in order to prevent or discredit truthful testimony is similarly unlawful.
  
  [*=1]The President’s efforts to limit the scope of Mueller’s investigation to exclude his conduct
  • 
    [*=1]The report describes multiple efforts by the president to curtail the scope of the Special Counsel’s investigation. As the report explains, "ubstantial evidence indicates that the President’s effort to have Sessions limit the scope of the Special Counsel’s investigation to future election interference was intended to prevent further investigative scrutiny of the President’s and his campaign’s conduct" — in other words, the President employed a private citizen to try to get the Attorney General to limit the scope of an ongoing investigation into the President and his associates.
    
    All of this conduct — trying to control and impede the investigation against the President by leveraging his authority over others — is similar to conduct we have seen charged against other public officials and people in powerful positions.
    
  
  
  [*=1]​The President’s efforts to prevent witnesses from cooperating with investigators probing him and his campaign.
  
  • 
    [*=1]The Special Counsel’s report establishes that the President tried to influence the decisions of both Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort with regard to cooperating with investigators. Some of this tampering and intimidation...was done in plain sight via tweets and public statements [and some] was done via private messages through private attorneys.

Of course, these aren’t the only acts of potential obstruction detailed by the Special Counsel. It would be well within the purview of normal prosecutorial judgment also to charge other acts detailed in the report.

We emphasize that these are not matters of close professional judgment...But, to look at these facts and say that a prosecutor could not probably sustain a conviction for obstruction of justice — the standard set out in Principles of Federal Prosecution — runs counter to logic and our experience.

As former federal prosecutors, we recognize that prosecuting obstruction of justice cases is critical because unchecked obstruction — which allows intentional interference with criminal investigations to go unpunished — puts our whole system of justice at risk. We believe strongly that, but for the OLC memo, the overwhelming weight of professional judgment would come down in favor of prosecution for the conduct outlined in the Mueller Report.​

Five days ago (May 6, 2019), 426 former federal prosecutors had signed the letter. As I write this post, over 800 former federal prosecutors who served in the DoJ during the Kennedy-to-Trump Administrations have signed the letter from which the above excerpts come. Just to put that 800+ figure in perspective, there are 94 US Attorneys districts/offices, which are the only offices from which DoJ federal prosecutor come.

To sum up: More former federal prosecutors than one can "shake a stick at" concur unequivocally that the US currently has an unindicted felon as its President. Period.

Click to expand...

Fletch said:

Then impeach him and shut the hell up already.

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JustHanging said:

You know perfectly well conservatives in the Senate will never vote to impeach. Those representatives are about as cowardly lot as it's possible to find. Ted Cruz comes to mind.

When you look at Trump's campaign strategy to energize his base, you can understand why he believes that about his base, the people that they've chose to represent them fit that mould, don't you think?

Trump's Midterm Closing Argument: Pure Racial Fear

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