By: Duncan Smith
Democrats who are attempting to find something — anything — to use against President Donald Trump ahead of the 2020 election won’t get any new material to take out of context from special counsel Robert Mueller’s report stemming from his witch hunt probe of the president for ‘Russian collusion.’
At least for now, anyway.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily blocked House Democrats from obtaining secret testimony contained in the Muller report.
The Associated Press reported:
The court’s unsigned order keeps previously undisclosed details from the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election out of the hands of Democratic lawmakers at least until early summer. The court will decide then whether to extend its hold.
The federal appeals court in Washington ruled in March that the documents should be turned over because the House Judiciary Committee’s need for the material in its investigation of President Donald Trump outweighed the Justice Department’s interests in keeping the testimony secret.
Mueller’s report, 448 pages in length, was issued in April 2019. His Democrat-donor prosecutors found no evidence of ‘collusion’ with Russia (because it was a fabricated narrative to begin with) but, according to the appeals court, “stopped short” of concluding whether the president obstructed justice during the probe (which he didn’t — he gave Mueller thousands of documents and made any White House official Mueller requested available to be interviewed).
The lower court said that House Democrats, who have subpoenaed the report, made a persuasive case that they needed it in order to make their own determinations about Trump’s actions — which completely undermines the entire purpose of the Mueller investigation in the first place.
Now, the Trump administration has until June 1 to file its rebuttal to the original House request, the Supreme Court ruling noted.
The Justice Department noted in its Supreme Court filings that the high court’s action was necessary in part because the House hasn’t given any indication it “urgently needs these materials for any ongoing impeachment investigation.”
The AP noted further:
The appeals court also is weighing whether former White House counsel Don McGahn must appear before the committee to answer questions related to the Mueller investigation. And the Justice Department has said it will ask the Supreme Court to step in and kill a lawsuit alleging that Trump is illegally profiting off the presidency through his luxury Washington hotel.
Mueller’s report detailed multiple interactions between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia, and examined several episodes involving the president for potential obstruction of justice. Mueller said his team did not find sufficient evidence to establish a criminal conspiracy between the campaign and the Kremlin to tip the election, though pointedly noted that he could not exonerate the president for obstruction.
First of all, McGahn has already given more than 30 hours’ worth of testimony to Mueller’s prosecutors during the witch hunt probe.
Secondly, prosecutors don’t not charge someone because they couldn’t find enough evidence; they either find the evidence and charge someone or they don’t. So this concept that Mueller “couldn’t rule out” whether Trump “obstructed justice” is bogus because that’s not the legal standard.
Either there is evidence…or there isn’t. There’s no ‘maybe he’s guilty’ in a criminal probe.
In any matter, the fact is the Trump administration is rightfully concerned that giving Democrats access to secret grand jury testimony, as highly unorthodox as it is, will no doubt be leaked out of context.
The fact is, Mueller’s attack dogs couldn’t find anything to charge the president or his campaign with. Because there is nothing there.
This article originally appeared at The National Sentinel and was republished with permission.
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