Kamala Harris makes claim debunked by Barr and Mueller on why Trump wasn't indicted – Washington Examiner, Washingtonexaminer.com

          

Sen. Kamala Harris of California made a claim about why President Trump was not indicted that has been debunked by Attorney General William Barr and special counsel Robert Mueller during her opening statement at the Democratic presidential debate Thursday evening.

          

“The only reason you [Trump] have not been indicted is because there was a memo in the Department of Justice that says a sitting president cannot be charged with a crime,” Harris told the crowd at Texas Southern University .

          

But both Barr and Mueller have repeatedly contradicted the claim made by Harris and others that Trump would have been charged with a crime if not for the existence of an Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) opinion which says a president can ‘t be indicted while in office.

          

Mueller, who was appointed special counsel by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in May 2017, concluded in March 2019 that theRussian government had interferedin the 2016 presidential election, but he did not establish any criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russians. Mueller laid out ten possible instances of obstruction of justice butdid not reach a conclusionon whether or not obstruction had occurred. Barr and Rosenstein then determined that Trump had not obstructed justice.

                     

Barr said in April that he and Rosenstein met with Mueller in early March and that they “specifically asked him about the OLC opinion and whether or not he was taking a position that he would have found a crime but for the existence of the OLC opinion. ”

          

“And he made it very clear several times that that was not his position,” Barr continued in April. “He was not saying that but for the OLC opinion, he would have found a crime. He made it clear that he had not made the determination that there was a crime. ”

          

During his May press conference, Mueller said that “the special counsel’s office is part of the Department of Justice, and by regulation, it was bound by that department policy, and charging the president with a crime was therefore not an option we could consider. ”After Mueller’s roughly nine-minute statement, some politicians, pundits, and journalists were confused about whether that meant he would’ve charged Trump with a crime if the OLC opinion didn’t exist, so Barr and Mueller put forward a united front following the presser to clarify.

          

“The Attorney General has previously stated that the Special Counsel repeatedly affirmed that he was not saying that, but for the OLC opinion, he would have found the President obstructed justice. The Special Counsel’s report and his statement today made clear that the office concluded it would not reach a determination – one way or the other – about whether the President committed a crime. There is no conflict between these statements, “ajoint statementfrom DOJ spokeswoman Kerri Kupec and Mueller spokesman Peter Carr said in May.

          

A similar situation arose during Mueller’s testimony in front of the House of Representatives in July.

          

In his morning appearance before the House Judiciary Committee, Muellercaused confusionwhen he appeared to contradict Barr and himself when he declined to stand by his previous statement.

          

Rep. Ted Lieu of California questioned him, “I’d like to ask you the reason, again, you did not indict Donald Trump is because of OLC opinion stating that you cannot indict a sitting president, correct?”

          

“That is correct,” Mueller said in reply.

          

But Muellerwalked that backduring his opening remarks in front of the House Intelligence Committee that afternoon.

          

“Now, before we go to questions, I want to add a correction to my testimony this morning,” Mueller said. “I want to go back to one thing that was said this morning by Mr. Lieu who said, and I quote, ‘You didn’t charge the president because of the OLC opinion.’ ”

          

“That is not the correct way to say it,” Mueller said. “As we say in the report and as I said at the opening, we did not reach a determination as to whether the president committed a crime.”

          

The day of Mueller’s testimony, Harris shared a post on Instagram promoting Lieu’s exchange with Muellerbefore deleting it.

          

Nevertheless, just a couple days after Mueller’s testimony, just like Harris on Thursday evening, Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadlertried to use the exchangewith Lieu as evidence that Trump would’ve been charged if not for the OLC opinion, despite the fact that Mueller walked that back and repeated that that wasn’t his position.

          

“He told us in a remarkable exchange with Mr. Lieu that, but for the Department of Justice policy prohibiting him from doing so, he would’ve indicted President Trump, ”Nadler claimed in July. “Indeed, it is clear that any other citizen of this country who has behaved as this president has would have been charged with multiple crimes.”

          

Nadler opened an“impeachment inquiry”into Trump on Thursday morning.