Tag Archives: Robert Mueller

On AG Barr’s Letter to Congressional Leaders Summarizing Mueller’s Report

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Here, for non-visitors to Twitter, is a thread that I posted there yesterday afternoon—

1/ It makes sense that underling Mueller would make the prosecution declination decision for DOJ when he found insufficient evidence of crime (no Trump/other U.S. person conspiracy with Russia to affect the ’16 election). Declinations are what underling prosecutors do.

2/ It also makes sense that on the other question–Did the President endeavor to obstruct justice?–where the evidence & legal Qs were closer & complicated, Mueller sent it all upstairs to his bosses Barr & Rosenstein for them to decide.

3/ Responsibility to decide something as momentous as whether the President is a crook properly resides at the top level of federal prosecution responsibility for that matter.

4/ When an AG decides that the President is not a crook, then that AG (& his advisers in OLC, etc.) does not need to revisit the question of whether a crooked president constitutionally may be indicted.

5/ Yes, an AG works for the President. And when the AG decides not to prosecute the President, their relationship is something that can appear to be a conflict of interest.

6/ The U.S. Congress chose to accept this risk in 1999, when it permitted the Independent Counsel law to expire. That statute took such decisions away from AGs, reposing them instead in court-appointed prosecutors.

7/ In taking that risk, Congress was avoiding the risk that a court-appointed IC would turn out to be in fact a less-sound decision-maker than would an AG, whatever his or her possible conflicts of interest.

8/ These are political process, policy decisions about how best, under the Constitution, to structure federal prosecution responsibility.

9/ On this policy decision as on every other one, no answer will be perfect or satisfying to all for all time. We will keep learning, arguing, and tinkering. I hope that over time, we make progress objectively and satisfy more of us that we are doing so.

Michael Cohen’s Upcoming Federal Sentencing & James McCord’s Role in Watergate

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(Also on Twitter, slightly edited–)

1/ On Michael Cohen’s upcoming federal sentencing & James McCord’s role in #Watergate—

2/ #MichaelCohen, President Trump’s former lawyer, pleaded guilty in August to eight federal crimes, two related to Trump’s campaign finances & six related to Cohen’s personal finances.

3/ In pleading guilty to the campaign finance crimes, Cohen implicated President Trump in hush money payments to two women in 2016.  Cohen & Trump worked together during his presidential campaign, Cohen told the Court, to conceal affairs that the women had with Trump.

4/ Cohen also pleaded guilty last week to an additional federal crime: making false statements to the U.S. Senate about Trump’s secret efforts during his presidential campaign to make a real estate deal with the Russian government.

5/ Cohen’s Aug. 2018 guilty plea was negotiated with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.  His Nov. 2018 guilty plea was negotiated with the Office of Special Counsel Robert #Mueller.

6/ Cohen reportedly concluded earlier this year “that his life has been utterly destroyed by his relationship with Mr. Trump and his own actions, and [that] to begin anew he needed to speed up the legal process by quickly confessing his crimes and serving any sentence he receives…”  https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/03/nyregion/michael-cohen-trump-strategy.html

7/ Cohen thus decided to plead guilty without having a deal with prosecutors requiring him to cooperate in continuing investigations & possible future trials & then to seek credit in sentencing for that cooperation.

8/ Cohen has, however, cooperated actively with federal law enforcement & with state law enforcement, & he has pledged to continue to do so.

9/ Cohen is scheduled to be sentenced on this Friday, Dec. 7, in the SDNY by U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley, III.  Cohen’s attorneys have detailed to the Court his cooperation & asked that he be sentenced to probation.

10/ President Trump has tweeted that Cohen “should … serve a full and complete sentence.”  https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1069614615510859776

11/ Mueller’s office agreed with Cohen to inform the Court of his cooperation.  It is expected to do so soon.

12/ The #Watergate comparison:  Cohen’s role in the investigations of possible crimes involving President Trump & others close to him in business, in his presidential campaign, & in his administration, resembles the role that James W. #McCord, Jr., played in Watergate.

13/ McCord, formerly an FBI agent & then a CIA officer, worked in 1972 as a bodyguard & a security coordinator at the Committee to Reelect the President (CREEP) [#Nixon].

14/ On June 17, 1972, McCord was one of five burglars arrested in Democratic National Committee offices in the Watergate hotel & office complex in Washington, D.C.

15/ The U.S. Department of Justice—the U.S. Attorney’s Office in D.C.—investigated.  It persuaded a federal grand jury to indict McCord, his fellow Watergate arrestees, & two others to whom they were connected.

16/ Judge John J. #Sirica, Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, tried the case.

17/ Early in the trial, five of the defendants—a former White House employee named E. Howard Hunt & the four other burglars who had been arrested at the Watergate with McCord—pleaded guilty.

18/ The trial of McCord & his remaining defendant, CREEP general counsel G. Gordon Liddy, went forward.  The jury convicted each man on every charge.

19/ Chief Judge Sirica, skeptical that all the facts had been brought out at the trial, then prepared to sentence the seven men.

20/ On Tuesday, March 20, 1973, three days before the scheduled sentencing, Judge Sirica was shocked to find McCord in the reception area of the judge’s chambers, talking to one of his law clerks.

21/ McCord was there to deliver a letter.  It turned out to be one of the most consequential letters in U.S. history.

22/ After taking appropriate precautions, Judge Sirica, before witnesses, opened McCord’s letter.  As he read it, he began to think, according to his memoir, “This is it, this is it, this is the break I’ve been hoping for.”  http://watergate.info/1973/03/19/mccord-letter-to-judge-sirica.html

23/ Judge Sirica kept the letter secret from the public until McCord’s sentencing at the end of that week.  But, on that Tuesday evening, he shared & discussed it with his other law clerk.  “I’ve always told you I felt someone would talk.  This is going to break this case wide open.”

24/ On March 23, Judge Sirica read McCord’s letter in open court.  He then sentenced the convicted defendants.  He gave lengthy sentences to six & put off sentencing McCord.

25/ McCord’s letter indeed began the unraveling of Watergate.  It led to further investigations, confessions, guilty pleas, indictments, & convictions, & to a President’s resignation.

26/ McCord committed serious crimes.  Then he came forward & told truthfully to prosecutors, juries, & Congressional committees, what he had done & what he knew.

27/ This cooperation earned him judicial credit.  Chief Judge Sirica sentenced James McCord in November 1973 to one to five years in prison.  He ended up serving four months.