“It would be rare for federal prosecutors to prosecute obstruction that did not arise from proceedings related to a separate crime,” then-top Justice Department officials Steven Engel and Ed O’Callaghan wrote in the document, which concludes with a formal recommendation against impeachment of Trump, which Barr signed and approved on March 24, 2019. The same date Barr informed Congress of his decision not to prosecute Trump, which was later criticized by Mueller and legal analysts for cherry-picking the Mueller report. The memo contains a legal analysis presented to Barr. Two federal courts involved in the public records case concluded that Barr did not rely on the memo for legal advice, never seriously considered impeaching Trump, had already made up his mind before he commissioned the memo, and that he signed the memo after notifying Congress of the decision. of. Last week, in ruling that the full memo must be released, a federal appeals court described the memo as an “academic exercise” or “thought experiment” intended to boost public coverage of Barr’s controversial decision against impeaching Trump. The lawsuit was filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a government watchdog group.

How Barr broke up with Mueller

In the memo, Barr’s lawmakers criticized Mueller’s analysis of related obstruction cases and said Trump should not be charged because, among other things, “there is no precedent” and claims Mueller could not find a single similar case with ” remotely similar circumstances. ” “In every successful obstruction case cited in the (Mueller) Report, the acts of corruption were committed to prevent the investigation and prosecution of a separate crime,” Barr’s aides argued in their memo. “The existence of such an offense is not a necessary element to prove a charge of obstruction, but the absence of underlying guilt is relevant and strong evidence.” Mueller concluded that there were several incidents with strong evidence of obstruction by Trump. But Barr’s lawmakers argued that Trump mostly “attempted to alter the process as the Special Counsel’s investigation progressed” but did not try to “intentionally alter evidence,” which would be more serious and could to be criminal. Specifically, the Barr deputies concluded that Trump did not break the law in any of the incidents highlighted by Mueller. That includes Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey and his earlier request that Comey go easy on the criminal investigation of his former top adviser Michael Flynn.
“The President’s expression of ‘hope’ that Comey would ‘let this go’ did not clearly direct a specific action in the Flynn investigation, and Comey did not react at the time as if he had received a direct order from the President,” he said. the bar. MPs wrote in the internal memorandum. Barr aides have given some credence to the idea that Trump may have obstructed by telling Don McGahn, his White House counsel, to write a memo saying he never tried to fire Mueller. Barr aides concede that Trump likely knew this was untrue, but “there is insufficient evidence to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that the President attempted to induce McGahn to lie.” possible obstruction of justice — this time in connection with the criminal investigation into whether he mishandled classified documents he moved from the White House to Mar-a-Lago. This story has been updated with additional details. CNN’s Katelyn Polantz, Evan Perez, Hannah Rabinowitz and Holmes Lybrand contributed to this report.