Tag: Barr acting as Trump’s Roy Cohen

Barr: Trump Instructing White House Counsel To Lie Is ‘Not A Crime’

Under questioning from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Attorney General William Barr claimed on Wednesday morning that Trump instructing his top White House lawyer to lie “is not a crime.”

After Barr gave a long answer defending Trump, Feinstein asked a simple follow-up question about the time Trump demanded Don McGahn, who was then the White House counsel, to lie about Trump’s request that McGahn get rid of Mueller.

“You still have a situation where a president essentially tries to change the lawyer’s account in order to prevent further criticism of himself — ” Feinstein started to say before Barr interrupted her.

View the complete May 1 article by Dan Desai Martin on the National Memo website here.

Barr defends handling of Mueller report

Attorney General William Barr on Wednesday defended his handling of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report at a tense Senate hearing, explaining in detail his contacts with Mueller, who had objected to his description of the report’s findings on obstruction.

In sworn testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Barr said he wanted to release the report’s bottom-line conclusions as quickly as possible because the public was in a “high state of agitation” over the results of Mueller’s investigation into Russian election interference and potential coordination between President Trump’s campaign and Moscow.

“Former government officials were confidently predicting that the president or members of his family would be indicted,” Barr told senators in his opening remarks.

View the complete May 1 article by Morgan Chalfant and Jacqueline Thomsen on The Hill website here.

The Mueller report: A profile of a president willing to sell out his country

It’s hard to come to any conclusion other than Donald Trump should be impeached and removed from office.

When Attorney General William Barr provided a brief, four-page summary of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation on March 22, it was obvious there were more questions remaining than answers. The full report was rumored to have clocked in at well over three hundred pages and Barr’s summary left much to be desired as to just what Mueller had uncovered. The message that Donald Trump would not be charged with offenses directly relating to Russian interference in the 2016 campaign, and that the Department of Justice had decided not to file charges of obstruction of justice, was met by celebration with some and puzzlement by others.

Having finally had a chance to look at an initial, redacted version of the report, Americans got a chance last Thursday to see for themselves just what horrors Attorney General Barr had been trying to bury for his president. In Mueller’s 448-page detailed narrative of his investigation, we saw the story of a campaign deeply steeped in Russian efforts to undermine our free and fair elections and a president attempting to or actively breaking the law to cover it up.

Continue reading “The Mueller report: A profile of a president willing to sell out his country”

Trump lawyers reviewed Mueller report for 10 hours before it was made public

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump’s personal lawyers spent at least 10 hours reviewing Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian meddling in the 2016 election before it was made public, two of the lawyers told Reuters on Friday.

Rudy Giuliani, Jay Sekulow and two other Trump lawyers went to the U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday and Wednesday for an early look at the 448-page report into whether Trump’s team colluded with Russia and whether Trump obstructed the investigation, which was released to the public on Thursday.

Attorney General William Barr, who has drawn criticism from Democratic lawmakers over his handling of the Mueller probe, said on Thursday that both White House counsel and Trump’s personal lawyers had been allowed to review the redacted report.

View the complete April 19 article by Karen Freifeld on the Reuters website here.

What Attorney General Barr said vs. what the Mueller report said

Before the special counsel’s report on Russia and President Trump was released to the public, Attorney General William P. Barr made several statements about what was in its 448 pages.

Barr received special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report last month and outlined its principal conclusions in a letter dated March 24. Barr then held a news conference on Thursday, shortly before releasing a redacted version of Mueller’s report.

As it turns out, in some cases, Barr’s characterizations were incomplete or misleading. The Mueller report is more damning of Trump than the attorney general indicated.

View the complete April 19 Salvador Rizzo on The Washington Post website here.

Barr v. Mueller: Friends pitted against each other

Despite close ties, the attorney general and special counsel face increasing scrutiny of their disagreements on the Trump probe.

Bill Barr and Robert Mueller have been close friends for 30 years, from the Justice Department to family weddings and the Bible study attended by both of their wives.

Now they’re anchoring two ends of a legal high-wire act playing out through news conferences, congressional hearings and close-up reviews of the special counsel’s long-awaited findings on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

The bond between the two men has been stressed over the past month amid a volley of letters and closed-door negotiations among their aides. Finally, on Thursday, the release of Mueller’s final report showcased the large amounts of daylight between the veteran law enforcement officials on fundamental questions at the heart of Donald Trump’s presidency.’

View the complete April 18 article by Josh Gerstein and Darren Samuelsohn on the Politico website here.

Five takeaways from Mueller’s report

The release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Thursday ends a two-year investigation that has shadowed Donald Trump’s presidency but opens a new era likely to keep Mueller and his findings in the spotlight.

The White House and congressional Republicans welcomed Thursday’s report as positive news for the president, while Democrats vowed to move forward with their investigations.

Mueller ultimately did not establish that Trump or members of his campaign coordinated or conspired with Moscow to affect the 2016 presidential election, but he and his team declined to reach a conclusion on whether the president obstructed justice.

View the complete April 18 article by Morgan Chalfant and Jacqueline Thomsen on The Hill website here.

What Attorney General Barr buried, misrepresented or ignored in clearing Trump

Attorney General William P. Barr has twice ensured that he had the first word on the conclusions drawn by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III after Mueller’s almost-two-year probe into President Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia’s efforts to interfere in that election.

In March, shortly after Mueller’s team completed its work, Barr offered the country a four-page overview of what Mueller found, one that necessarily elided a lot of detail from Mueller’s work.

On Thursday, Barr held a news conference an hour before the Justice Department released a redacted version of Mueller’s full report to make pointed comments about what the report contained. Barr repeatedly declared that Trump had been cleared of collusion, for example, words that were music to Trump’s ears.

View the complete April 18 article by Philip Bump on The Washington Post website here.