Reading the Judge Berman Jackson FOIA ruling.
They are arguing that the memo to Barr recommending no prosecution of Trump is not privileged because it was not predecisional. That Mueller had already decided to not prosecute Trump so Barr didn't protect him
storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
Berman agrees with CREW that the memo was not about a prosecutorial decision, because of the fact that the President "would not be prosecuted was a given."
So Barr didn't decide to not prosecute Trump, Mueller did!
Then a couple of pages of black ink followed by this. DOJ did not assert privilege on the 1st Section of the memo & didn't mention it either. Leaving the judge in a position where DOJ did not claim privilege on it to avoid revealing it!
Hopefully we will see it soon, but I suspect it is related to whether to explain undercover ops or not.
Why do I say that? The judge says that Section 1 places the evidence gathered by the SCO in context. That DOJ decided to not reveal that information to explain no prosecution!
So Barr made no decision on prosecution of Trump.
But he made a decision to not release the info that would explain why Mueller didn't prosecute Trump.
Making Section 1 of the memo "predecisional" & Sec. 2 not predecisional. But DOJ only claimed Section 2 as privileged info...
So Mueller's SCO did decide to not prosecute Trump, but Barr decided to not reveal the secret reason Mueller didn't prosecute (Trump's role as an FBI asset stinging the coup plotters) & are now accusing Barr of misleading Congress for not telling them that Mueller cleared Trump!
In rejecting the attorney client privilege, the judge made the same finding. On prosecuting Trump "that decision, entrusted to the Special Counsel, already had been made and left undisturbed by the Attorney General.” Mueller not Barr decided to not prosecute Trump
So much for the discredited theory that Mueller was out to get Trump!
The claim that Barr chose to not prosecute Trump is false.
Because Mueller had chosen to not prosecute Trump & Barr wasn't considering overruling Mueller, just how to explain it to Congress & the public.
The jDems are also accusing Biden's DOJ of continuing to try & hide this information & the Garland DOJ has asked for more time to put their case together to keep the memo secret. talkingpointsmemo.com/news/senate-de…
Trying to find a clear copy of the new unredacted memo.
Seems that in addition to Mueller's declination to prosecute the case, the memo focused on looking at it hypothetically as if Trump were a private citizen, would DOJ indict him for "Obstruction". OLC found that it was a no!
But the judge ruled it was not protected under deliberative privilege under FOIA because it was strictly a hypothetical. Mueller chose to not indict Trump, Barr asked but would we if he weren't President? And OLC said President was not guilty of obstruction based on Mueller.
So the Dems FOIA shenanigans just proved that Trump would not have been indicted & wasn't saved by DOJ policy (they used memos created by Janet Reno to save Bill as their precedent) that prohibited the indictment of a sitting President.
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