The Justice Department has finally made public the full text of the secret memo that justified the decision not to charge then President Trump for obstructing justice during the inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential elections.
The 9-page 2019 memo, which was addressed to Rod Rosenstein, the then Dep. Attorney General, reveals that there was no instance to prove that Trump obstructed justice as cited by Robert Mueller, the special counsel.
The memo was released after a watchdog group sued for its release. They contended that the justice department had deceitfully kept it away from the public eye. The federal judge investigating the case concurred with the government group and the judge’s opinion was upheld last week by an appeals panel and ordered for the memo to be publicized.
Two high-ranking Justice Department officers were behind the drafting of the memo for AG William Barr. He subsequently informed Congress that there was little evidence to implicate or charge Trump for obstructing the Mueller inquiry. An abridged version was made public in 2021 that omitted the factual and legal analysis.
Justice Department Memo Concluded That counsel Mueller Had Not Provided Sufficient Evidence Of Criminal Offence
The freshly released analysis revealed that senior legal officials Edward O’Calalghan and Steven Engel concluded that Mueller had not presented sufficient evidence that conclusively proved the commission of any criminal offense.
The memo revealed that pursuing a case of this nature would lead to serious questions regarding constitutional law and public policy. They would weigh against following criminal charges only in genuine cases.
Numerous instances of the possibility of obstruction by Donald Trump were analyzed in the memo by the Justice Department. In his early years, Trump put pressure on the FBI to drop charges against his assistant Michael Flynn, telling then-Director James Comey to “let it go.”
The memo concluded that there was insufficient evidence to support allegations of obstruction against Trump.
