More than 700 former US attorney generals say Trump would be charged with obstruction if not in office

in #donaldtrump5 years ago (edited)


In Volume II of their report to the US Attorney General, Robert Mueller and his team describe several examples of President Donald Trump trying to obstruct the investigations into Russian assistance of his election in 2016 and into his attempts to hinder those investigations. The Mueller report takes pains to state the team was not bringing formal charges against the President, because of a Department of Justice rule that sitting presidents cannot be indicted. The report does recommend that Congress investigate the incidents catalogued in the report.

Trump and his advisors claim that Mueller and his team are on a "witch hunt," claiming further that the conclusions of the report are politically motivated.

Not so, say more than 700 former US attorneys. In an unprecedented move, both Democrats and Republicans have signed a letter stating categorically that Trump's actions would be tried as felonies if they had been committed by anyone other than a sitting president.

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:

· The President’s efforts to fire Mueller and to falsify evidence about that effort;

· The President’s efforts to limit the scope of Mueller’s investigation to exclude his conduct; and

· The President’s efforts to prevent witnesses from cooperating with investigators probing him and his campaign.

In other words, the Mueller report is not a witch hunt, but clear evidence of wrongdoing by the President and his team.

The entire statement is available on Medium. Signatures to the statement are being added every day.


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