Former President Donald Trump‘s Attorney General Bill Barr wrongly withheld key parts of an internal memo when he announced findings of the Russia investigation, a court has ruled.
Barr announced Trump had been found by the investigation to not have obstructed justice, however a court has ruled the 2019 Justice Department memo he cited to do so represented private deliberations made by lawyers before any formal decision was reached.
Friday’s court decision stated the DOJ’s controversial memo noted: “Mueller had declined to accuse President Trump of obstructing justice but also had declined to exonerate him.” The court added in its ruling that Robert Mueller, along with the rest of the Justice Department, “took as a given that the Constitution would bar the prosecution of a sitting President”.
BILL BARR SAYS ‘EVIDENCE IS BUILDING’ AS DOJ DIGS ‘DEEPER AND DEEPER’ INTO TRUMP JAN. 6 CASE
The court wrapped up by saying rulings in the Trump-Russia investigation may have been different if all memo about the information was known.
It comes after Barr said “the evidence is building” as the Justice Department investigates Trump related to the Jan. 6 riots.
“I think definitely the evidence is building, but after the last set of hearings, I said, you know, personally, if this is what there is, as attorney general, I still don’t see that as a sufficient basis to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a crime was committed by the president,” Barr told CBS News. “But I am sure what they are doing is getting deeper and deeper into it.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
He added: “I’ve said for a while that I thought his behavior was shameful on Jan. 6, and just on its merits people should understand it was very bad behavior. But whether it crossed the line to criminal behavior, from the Department of Justice’s standpoint, it is always can we prove criminal behaviors. In this case, it’ll really depend on his state of mind.”
Barr has repeatedly said there was no fraud in 2020 sufficient to change the outcome of the election, and Attorney General Merrick Garland has called the Capitol riot investigation “the most wide-ranging investigation and the most important investigation” the Justice Department has ever conducted. Trump has denied wrongdoing.
