Mueller testimony to Congress stalled by Executive Privilege claim
Source: WSJ
Special Counsel Robert Muellers appearance before a House panel has been stalled partly due to discussions on whether the White Houses assertion of executive privilege would limit his testimony, according to people familiar with the matter.
The House Judiciary Committee and Mr. Muellers team have been in negotiations for days about the contours of the special counsels eagerly-awaited testimony about his 448-page report on Russian interference in the 2016 election and episodes in which President Trump allegedly sought to influence the investigation.
Attorney General William Barr released the Mueller report publicly last month with redactions for grand jury and other sensitive material. The House committee then subpoenaed the unredacted version of the report plus the underlying evidence. Last week, the White House asserted executive privilege over the subpoenaed materials.
Legal questions on how Mr. Trumps assertion of executive privilege would affect Mr. Muellers testimony are central to the continuing negotiations, said the people familiar with the matter. The privilege claim could prevent him from discussing details involving Mr. Trump and his advisers beyond what is in the redacted report, the people added. The Justice Departments Office of Legal Counsel is weighing the questions and is expected to provide guidance, officials said.
Read more: https://www.wsj.com/articles/mueller-testimony-to-congress-stalled-by-executive-privilege-claim-11558041535?emailToken=df80b9d61a2fcbf68926e30f0a27823bfmQ0UeOomtXrbBWpiSef+fNtqd05Ri7fzLQMx/JG/ptThn3DkK2yBepEOBzFbO1HA6xOUPvw69gqKNO1scbRwUtt+TrhJvvhAFM
mopinko
(70,268 posts)jeebus. they will just throw any old shit at the wall hoping it will stick wont they?
how the hell is nadler even entertaining this crap?
BigmanPigman
(51,642 posts)seeing what sticks. In other words D-E-L-A-Y!
Jake Stern
(3,145 posts)Eliminate or severely restrict executive privilege.
ffr
(22,674 posts)Then we can change it in a lame duck session to hamstring the republis.
Outflank those bastards!
sandensea
(21,688 posts)That's Cheeto must tell Melania every time she asks him what he was doing with Ivanka.
Five Ten Nineteen
(22 posts)Concocted by a Coward!
Magoo48
(4,721 posts)Without his testimony on the entirety of the report, in public, progress is stalled indefinitely. His stance is tentative and reserved. He acts like a man restrained. Well see...
flyingfysh
(1,990 posts)I first heard of this term when Nixon dreamed it up to try to defend himself against Watergate. I don't know of any legal or Constitutional basis for such a privilege, but I am not a lawyer.
Is there any legal basis for this, or is this a custom basically started by Nixon?
pnwmom
(109,009 posts)Midnight Writer
(21,819 posts)Beartracks
(12,821 posts)I believe it's the privilege of Congress to decide what is legislatively appropriate and to subpoena documents and testimony.
==========
More_Cowbell
(2,191 posts)The special counsel regulations are set up to allow that, for this very situation.
SunSeeker
(51,745 posts)pnwmom
(109,009 posts)that Comey had started? That would be separate from a US criminal investigation.
FailureToCommunicate
(14,026 posts)pnwmom
(109,009 posts)It is so easy to spin what someone says or to misunderstand him.
FailureToCommunicate
(14,026 posts)Anyway, there's nothing in the "Mueller Report" about the counter intelligence investigation.
SunSeeker
(51,745 posts)There were counterintelligence FBI agents embedded with the Mueller team, but they were not under Mueller. That was a very dismaying thing to gleen from the Report. Mueller just acted as a prosecutor. He did not take over the counterintelligence investigation, which began well before he was appointed. The Mueller Report says nothing about the status, let alone the findings, of the counterintelligence investigation, nor whether it is even still ongoing. Trump may have shut it down for all we know.
Adam Schiff has requested to be briefed on the status of the counterintelligence investigation, but so far has been ignored.
Headline 2 days ago at WaPo:
What happened to the Trump counterintelligence investigation? House investigators dont know. But not for lack of asking.
https://beta.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/05/15/what-happened-trump-counterintelligence-investigation-house-investigators-dont-know/?outputType=amp
pnwmom
(109,009 posts)He could have been working on the criminal investigation and also assisting the FBI with counter-intelligence matters.
SunSeeker
(51,745 posts)It was the embedded FBI counterintelligence agents who were doing the counterintelligence investigation, not Mueller.
Mueller is done, he purports to have completed his mandate and unequivocally stated be will not bring any more indictments.
If he is now helping counterintelligence officers, that would appear to be outside his mandate. I can't imagine Barr letting him just carry on like that. It really is odd that he is still there, and not saying a word.
pnwmom
(109,009 posts)Because I haven't seen anything that precludes his involvement assisting the FBI in its counter-intelligence investigation.
He IS done with the criminal investigation, yes.
How would any of us know whether he ALSO had a mandate from Rosenstein on the counter-intelligence side? Counter-Intelligence work is normally kept secret.
SunSeeker
(51,745 posts)"At the conclusion of the Special Counsel's work, he or she shall provide the Attorney General with a confidential report explaining the prosecution or declination decisions reached by the Special Counsel." https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/28/600.8
pnwmom
(109,009 posts)I'm saying we don't know whether he ALSO, under a different assignment, assisted with a counter-intelligence investigation.
But we do know he's doing something for the DOJ still. And one thing that's still going on is that "mystery" investigation involving some foreign company, which was secretly acted on b the Supreme Court. My bet's on that.
And if that's part of a counter-intelligence investigation, it may never get unsealed -- or we might have to wait for decades.
machoneman
(4,014 posts)he exceeded his allowed testimony under executive privilege, if that crap move stands.
Remember that Trump fired one fellow just before his plan would have been fully vested in another really shitty move.
SunSeeker
(51,745 posts)pnwmom
(109,009 posts)before he was fired.
How would we know?
SunSeeker
(51,745 posts)The Mueller investigation was a criminal probe, not a counterintelligence investigation.
From the Atlantic:
It was not a counterintelligence probe. Mueller both says this directly and also describes how the counterintelligence equities were handled. Heres how Mueller describes his investigation: Like a U.S. Attorneys Office, the Special Counsels Office considered a range of classified and unclassified information available to the FBI in the course of the Offices Russia investigation, and the Office structured that work around evidence for possible use in prosecutions of federal crimes. A counterintelligence investigation is not structured around evidence for possible use in prosecutions of federal crimes.
Mueller then answers the question of what happened to the counterintelligence components of the investigation: The FBI took responsibility for them. From its inception, Mueller writes, the Office recognized that its investigation could identify foreign intelligence and counterintelligence information relevant to the FBIs broader national security mission. FBI personnel who assisted the Office established procedures to identify and convey such information to the FBI.
The special counsels office and the FBI Counterintelligence Division had regular meetings to facilitate this transfer of information. For more than the past year, Mueller goes on, the FBI also embedded personnel at the Office who did not work on the Special Counsels investigation, but whose purpose was to review the results of the investigation and to sendin writingsummaries of foreign intelligence and counterintelligence information to FBIHQ and FBI Field Offices. The report deals only, Mueller says, with information necessary to account for the Special Counsels prosecution and declination decisions and to describe the investigations main factual results.
In other words, the Mueller investigation was a criminal probe only. It had embedded FBI personnel sending back to the FBI material germane to the FBIs counterintelligence mission. But Mueller does not appear to have taken on the counterintelligence investigative function himself.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/04/ben-wittes-five-conclusions-mueller-report/588259/
pnwmom
(109,009 posts)It only means that the criminal and counterintelligence probes were separate.
Yes, the report only dealt with prosecution and declination decisions. That wouldn't preclude Mueller, who is an expert in counter-intelligence, from also assisting in that investigation -- but not as part of his special counsel, criminal work.
And we know that Mueller is working on SOMETHING there that he's not talking about.
SunSeeker
(51,745 posts)He was only assisting them to the extent they were embedded with his team and the Mueller team was passing info to them. The Mueller team is now disbanded.
pnwmom
(109,009 posts)might be on the counter-intelligence side, which has never been made public and probably never will be.
The criminal investigation team has now been disbanded.That doesn't tell us about whether Mueller is still involved in assisting on the counter-intelligence side.
All we know is that he is still working there, doing SOMETHING.
jmowreader
(50,567 posts)...that the more he pulls this shit, the more guilty he looks.
beachbum bob
(10,437 posts)and go to war with the trump admin on everything
Historic NY
(37,454 posts)FailureToCommunicate
(14,026 posts)the whole enchilada in your hands. (the un-redacted enchilada)
Bayard
(22,181 posts)That it was confiscated, along with all of his notes.
But what is the penalty for "violating" executive privilege? That he loses his pension? House of Reps holds the purse, can't they re-instate it?
BlueIdaho
(13,582 posts)BumRushDaShow
(129,662 posts)that the bulk of what was being investigated happened BEFORE the inauguration in January 2017. IOW, Obama was still President, not Drumpf. So how can any claim of "Executive Privilege" apply here?
(unless they are referring trying to claim "Executive Privilege" over all the obstruction that happened DURING the investigation itself)
Maxheader
(4,374 posts)Sure..why whine about the a.g.s interpretation? He knew he'd have to testify about true content, eventually.
Progressive Jones
(6,011 posts)in the hearts and minds of Donald Trump and William Barr.
Others, as well.
paleotn
(17,989 posts)Executive privilege does not apply.