Government

600+ Former Federal Prosecutors Can't Be Wrong

They have a distinctly different take than the Attorney General.

By  
on

Attorney General William Barr (Photo by Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

In a move that should be devastating (but probably won’t be) to President Donald Trump’s and Attorney General Bill Barr’s repeated assertions that the Mueller report cleared the president of any wrongdoing, over 600 former federal prosecutors have signed an open letter stating they believe that based on the information in the Mueller report, Donald Trump would be indicted for obstruction of justice if he were not the sitting president. And that’s not some spin — that’s pretty much exactly what they wrote:

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.

For any other administration, that would be damning.

The letter goes on to point out three specific areas where an obstruction charge would be justified:

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.

As you might imagine, with 650 signatories to date, there is a wide variety of lawyers who have signed onto the letter. On the list are former federal prosecutors who have served under both Republican and Democratic administrations, with years serving in the government ranging from 41 years at the high end to four on the low end. There are also a bunch of former prosecutors who have found their way to Biglaw. Some of these folks include Robert Weiner, partner at Arnold & Porter; Robin Linsenmayer, of counsel at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliff; Sean Coffey, partner at Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel; Bradley Harsch, special counsel at Sullivan & Cromwell; Geoffrey Graber, partner at Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll; and Daniel Shallman, partner at Covington & Burling.

Sponsored

Of course, these former prosecutors are not in a position to do anything about their opinions on obstruction charges but vote in the 2020 election.

headshotKathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

Sponsored

Topics

, , , ,