Bill Barr just got his butt handed to him by a federal judge over Mueller Report obstruction
If you followed the Mueller investigation and what publicly surfaced from it, then you already know that when Bill Barr claimed that the Mueller report exonerated Donald Trump, Barr was flat out lying to the American people. Now it turns out Barr also lied about it to a federal judge, which is coming back to bite him.
Federal Judge Amy Berman Jackson demanded awhile back that Bill Barr turn over the memo that the Office of Legal Counsel provided him on whether Trump could be criminally charge with obstruction of justice. In response, Barr claimed that it had to remain secret, because it was used in his decision making process about whether to charge Trump. But Judge Jackson concluded today that Barr was lying about this, and she ruled that the DOJ must immediately turn it over.
This is a big deal for a few reasons. First, because Barr is no longer in control of the DOJ, it seems a given that the DOJ will swiftly comply with the judge’s ruling. Second, because this was a Freedom of Information Act case, the memo won’t just end up in the judge’s hands, it’ll quickly end up in the public’s hands.
So now the entire country is about to get a look at a memo which will essentially prove that Bill Barr broke the law in his decision to shield Donald Trump from prosecution. This is going to greatly increase the public’s appetite for federal criminal prosecution of both Trump and Barr for obstruction of justice, at a time when Merrick Garland’s DOJ is showing that it intends to be aggressive in its prosecution on all fronts.
This should also bring new attention to Robert Mueller’s final report – which never did see the light of day because Barr dishonestly redacted it – and the Trump crimes that are heavily documented within it.
There will be some defeatists who will yell “Look what all Trump got away with, we told you he was going to get away with it all!” But that’s not how anything works. This kind of dirty laundry becoming public is what causes these types of people to end up being prosecuted and imprisoned.
Donald Trump is already going to prison on state charges in New York for his financial crimes. This new Mueller revelation could increase the odds that the Feds also end up criminally indicting Trump – and it means that Bill Barr now has to worry about ending up indicted as well.
