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| "How did I win the 2016 election? What if there is election interference in 2018 or 2020?" "Worry ye not, for we are here to whisper in your ears." Trump being advised by his top advisor, Mephistopheles. 2016 to present |
This is about false advisement by the nefarious ones by whispering into the ears of the king.
That is how attorney-client privilege immunities are stripped.
Trump is not an attorney but Barb and her League of Old School Civil Rights Legal Dogs are.
#sayhisname
McQuade: Trump committed obstruction of justice
Former Detroit U.S. Attorney Barb McQuade signed onto a statement Monday with hundreds of other former federal prosecutors saying President Donald Trump would be charged with crimes for obstruction of justice were he not in the White House.
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| "I see Watergate 'Legal Geniuses' (trademark pending)" Barbara McQuade - MIED |
McQuade, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, served as the top federal prosecutor for the Eastern District of Michigan from 2010 to March 2017, stepping down after Trump took office.
She co-chaired the Terrorism and National Security Subcommittee of the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee from 2010-17.
Now a professor at the University of Michigan School of Law, McQuade has opined extensively on the Mueller investigation and report.
I signed this statement with hundreds of other former federal prosecutors to make clear what Mueller’s nuance may have obscured: Trump’s conduct violated the obstruction of justice statute, and he would be charged with crimes if he were not president. https://t.co/FOXvJsrngG— Barb McQuade (@BarbMcQuade) May 6, 2019
The letter, published on the website Medium, had been signed by more than 390 former federal prosecutors from both Republican and Democratic administrations, as of Monday afternoon. They described themselves as former "line attorneys, supervisors, special prosecutors, United States Attorneys and senior officials at the Department of Justice."
Trump has incorrectly said the Mueller report "exonerated" him. The group of former prosecutors painted a different picture.
"Despite the tremendous success that I have had as President, including perhaps the greatest ECONOMY and most successful first two years of any President in history, they have stolen two years of my (our) Presidency (Collusion Delusion) that we will never be able to get back," Trump tweeted Sunday.
"Also, there are 'No High Crimes & Misdemeanors,' No Collusion, No Conspiracy, No Obstruction. ALL THE CRIMES ARE ON THE OTHER SIDE, and that’s what the Dems should be looking at, but they won’t. Nevertheless, the tables are turning!"
In the statement, the prosecutors said the details included in 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."
They specifically cite Trump's alleged efforts to fire Mueller via former White House counsel Donald McGahn and then to "falsify evidence about that effort."
"Firing Mueller would have seriously impeded the investigation of the President and his associates — obstruction in its most literal sense," they wrote.
"Directing the creation of false government records in order to prevent or discredit truthful testimony is similarly unlawful."
The prosecutors also point to Trump's efforts to limit the scope of Mueller’s investigation to exclude his conduct and to prevent witnesses from cooperating with investigators probing him and his campaign.
"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," the prosecutors wrote.
McQuade, who oversaw public corruption cases while in office, has also questioned Attorney General Bill Barr's decision to conclude that Trump hadn't violated any laws after Mueller found it inappropriate to say whether Trump committed obstruction of justice.
"Barr has said that were no instances in which he overruled the special counsel. In fact, he overruled Mueller’s finding of obstruction," she tweeted last week.
"He should just say so instead of using letters, press conference and testimony to mislead the public."
McQuade has also criticized Trump for downplaying Russian interference in the 2016 election, saying "Trump’s failure to protect our country from future attacks is his biggest betrayal."
STATEMENT BY FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTORS
We are former federal prosecutors. We served under both Republican and Democratic administrations at different levels of the federal system: as line attorneys, supervisors, special prosecutors, United States Attorneys, and senior officials at the Department of Justice. The offices in which we served were small, medium, and large; urban, suburban, and rural; and located in all parts of our country.
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.
Attempts to fire Mueller and then create false evidence
Despite being advised by then-White House Counsel Don McGahn that he could face legal jeopardy for doing so, Trump directed McGahn on multiple occasions to fire Mueller or to gin up false conflicts of interest as a pretext for getting rid of the Special Counsel. When these acts began to come into public view, Trump made “repeated efforts to have McGahn deny the story” — going so far as to tell McGahn to write a letter “for our files” falsely denying that Trump had directed Mueller’s termination.
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. The Special Counsel’s report states: “Substantial evidence indicates that in repeatedly urging McGahn to dispute that he was ordered to have the Special Counsel terminated, the President acted for the purpose of influencing McGahn’s account in order to deflect or prevent scrutiny of the President’s conduct toward the investigation.”
Attempts to limit the Mueller investigation
The report describes multiple efforts by the president to curtail the scope of the Special Counsel’s investigation.
Second, after McGahn told the President that he could not contact Sessions himself to discuss the investigation, Trump went outside the White House, instructing his former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, to carry a demand to Sessions to direct Mueller to confine his investigation to future elections. Lewandowski tried and failed to contact Sessions in private. After a second meeting with Trump, Lewandowski passed Trump’s message to senior White House official Rick Dearborn, who Lewandowski thought would be a better messenger because of his prior relationship with Sessions. Dearborn did not pass along Trump’s message.
As the report explains, “[s]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.
Witness tampering and intimidation
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, including the dangling of pardons, was done in plain sight via tweets and public statements; other such behavior was done via private messages through private attorneys, such as Trump counsel Rudy Giuliani’s message to Cohen’s lawyer that Cohen should “[s]leep well tonight[], you have friends in high places.”
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. Of course, there are potential defenses or arguments that could be raised in response to an indictment of the nature we describe here. In our system, every accused person is presumed innocent and it is always the government’s burden to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. 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.
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| https://protectdemocracy.org/ |
If you are a former federal prosecutor and would like to add your name below, click here.
Protect Democracy will update this list daily with new signatories.
Signatories have been vetted to the best of our ability.Protect Democracy will update this list daily with new signatories.
Here is another list of "well-armed" militia with institutional brigades.
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