Feb 15, 2022 · The Trump Organization is being reinstated as a defendant in a lawsuit filed by the D.C. attorney general against former President Trump's 2017 Inaugural Committee.D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine filed a lawsuit in early 2020 that alleged the inaugural committee spent about $1 million on event space at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., that was …
May 05, 2021 · A federal judge has ordered the release of a legal memorandum the Trump-era Justice Department prepared for then-Attorney General William Barr before he announced his conclusion that President ...
The Mueller report, officially titled Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election, is the official report documenting the findings and conclusions of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 United States presidential election, allegations of conspiracy or coordination between Donald …
In June 2016, Trump’s son, son-in-law, and campaign chairman met at Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer who they expected would give them negative information about Clinton.
The lawsuit was brought by an activist group known as Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Jackson said the DOJ has until May 17 to file a motion. The judge said the Justice Department has until May 17 to file a motion to stay the order to release the memo.
District for the District of Columbia Judge Amy Berman Jackson said the memo should be released because it did not fit the exemption for “deliberative” documents under the law.
A federal judge has ruled that former Attorney General William Barr was “disingenuous” about the process behind his decision to issue a memo clearing then-President Trump on obstruction of justice charges. At issue is a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking, among other things, a Justice Department memo that Barr said helped guide his decision ...
Politics News White House makes more homeowners eligible for lower mortgage payments . The memorandum, she noted, “was being written at the same time and by the same people who were drafting the Attorney General’s letter to Congress setting forth his views on the basis for a prosecution.”.
The DOJ had refused to give the March 24, 2019, memorandum to a government transparency group, saying the document represented the private advice of lawyers — before any formal decision had been made — and was therefore exempt from disclosure.
Democrat Ted Lieu asked Mueller whether the reason he did not indict Trump was that Department of Justice policy prohibits the indictment of sitting presidents. Mueller originally confirmed that this was the reason. However, later that day, Mueller corrected his comments, stating that his team did not determine whether Trump committed a crime. Additionally, Mueller answered Republican Ken Buck that a president could be charged with obstruction of justice (or other crimes) after the president left office.
In March 2020, federal judge Reggie Walton, appointed to his position by President George W. Bush, declared that he would personally review the redactions made in the Mueller report to ensure that the redactions were legitimate. This came during a lawsuit filed by the pro-transparency Electronic Privacy Information Center and media outlet BuzzFeed News to release the full, unredacted report under the Freedom of Information Act. Walton cited that he had concerns on whether the redactions were legitimate, due to Attorney General William Barr having displayed a "lack of candor" regarding the report.
This was first reported on April 30, 2019. Mueller thought that the Barr letter "did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance" of the findings of the special counsel investigation that he led. "There is now public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation". Mueller also requested Barr release the Mueller report's introductions and executive summaries. The March 27 Mueller letter made no mention of media coverage.
In July 2019, Mueller testified to Congress that a president could be charged with crimes including obstruction of justice after the president left office. In 2020, a Republican-appointed federal judge decided to personally review the report's redactions to see if they were legitimate.
According to its authorizing document, which was signed by then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on May 17, 2017, the investigation's scope included allegations that there were links or coordination between President Donald Trump 's presidential campaign and the Russian government as well as "any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation". The authorizing document also included "any other matters within the scope of 28 CFR § 600.4 (a) "; enabling the special counsel "to investigate and prosecute" any attempts to interfere with its investigation, "such as perjury, obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence, and intimidation of witnesses ".
The report was submitted to Attorney General William Barr on March 22, 2019, and a redacted version of the 448-page report was publicly released by the Department of Justice (DOJ) on April 18, 2019. It is divided into two volumes.
The Mueller report found that the Russian government "interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion" and "violated U.S. criminal law".
A federal judge ordered the Justice Department to get an answer directly from President Trump about whether recent tweets and statements by him constituted orders to declassify, unredact, and make public special counsel Robert Mueller’s entire report along with all of the FBI interviews connected to that investigation.
DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s December report outlined a host of problems with the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation , especially with its abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act process.
The Justice Department said in a court filing that “there is no basis to require the Federal Bureau of Investigation to reprocess over 4,000 pages of FD-302s from the Special Counsel’s investigation.".
Brennan responded to Ratcliffe's declassification move on CNN, saying, “It is appalling, his selective declassification of information that clearly is designed to advance the political interests of Donald Trump and Republicans who are aligned with him.”.
Judge Reggie Walton, who has critiqued Attorney General William Barr’ s handling of the Mueller report in the past but also upheld redactions in it, issued that order during a Friday teleconference following an emergency motion filed by BuzzFeed with the district court.
The Justice Department had told Walton it had conferred with the White House counsel’s office about Trump’s tweets and that the White House said Trump’s pronouncements did not constitute specific declassification orders — but the judge said Friday he wanted an answer by next Wednesday from Trump himself about that.
Mueller’s report concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 election in a “sweeping and systematic fashion," but it "did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government.".
Key Points. “If we had had confidence that” President Donald Trump “clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so,” Robert Mueller says in breaking his silence about his 22-month probe of the 2016 election. Mueller says that if he testified before Congress, as Democrats want, he won’t elaborate beyond his final report.
Special counsel Robert Mueller resigns from the Department of Justice, concludes investigation. Squawk Alley. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, in a statement, said, “The Special Counsel has completed the investigation, closed his office, and has closed the case.”.
That “process,” which Mueller did not name, is impeachment.
A growing number of Democrats in the House are calling for an impeachment inquiry because of the findings of Mueller’s report, and Trump’s stonewalling of their demand for testimony from people connected to him, and documents.
However, in his report to Barr, Mueller wrote that his probe did find “multiple acts by the President that were capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement investigations.”.
Mueller also says Russia “launched a concerted attack on our political system.”.
presidential election at the Justice Department in Washington, May 29, 2019. Jim Bourg | Reuters.