POGO urges the inspector general to investigate whether DOJ lawyers lied to a judge to hide the role DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel played in Barr’s effort to mislead the public about Mueller’s report.
In a Thursday letter, a government watchdog group asked the DOJ’s independent inspector general to investigate whether department attorneys committed perjury or other crimes through a potentially improper attempt to keep the memo’s contents concealed amid a public records request.
“If it turns out that they committed crimes in the process of doing so, they will have magnified the harm to the department’s already damaged reputation and compounded the effect of Barr’s lies to the American people,” read the letter from the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) to the DOJ inspector general.
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DOJ attorneys told a federal judge that the memo, prepared at Barr’s request by the agency s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), provided legal advice that guided Barr s decision not to charge former President Trump
DOJ to Appeal Court Ruling to Release Memo Related to Trump Obstruction Decision
The Justice Department told a federal court on Monday that it intends to partially appeal a ruling requiring the release of a legal memorandum prepared by the Trump-era Justice Department for then-Attorney General William Barr to assist in his decision on whether to prosecute then-President Donald Trump for obstruction of justice during the Mueller special counsel investigation.
DOJ attorneys on late Monday filed a “Notice of Appeal” and a request to partially stay the court order while the case plays out. In their request, the attorneys said they were willing to release the entirety of the first page and a section of the March 24, 2019, internal memo but asked for the other redacted portions to remain hidden from the public.
The Justice Department filed an appeal of a federal judge’s order to release the full Office of Legal Counsel memo supporting former Attorney General William Barr’s decision following the receipt of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report related to whether former President Donald Trump committed obstruction of justice.
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A federal judge ordered the release of an Office of Legal Counsel memo supporting former Attorney General William Barr’s decision not to pursue obstruction of justice against former President Donald Trump following the release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.
Judge Amy Berman Jackson released a 41-page opinion on Monday rejecting arguments from the Trump DOJ that the advisory memo from March 2019 had been part of the deliberative process and subject to attorney-client privilege and thus not subject to public release following a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Instead, the Obama appointee who handed down longtime Trump associate Roger Stone’s 40-month sentence last year after overseeing the GOP operative’s jury conviction in November 2019, critiqued Barr’s handling of the Mueller report and ordered the OLC document to be released, giving the Biden DOJ until May 17 to decide if it wa