Hundreds of Former Federal Prosecutors Would Indict Donald Trump
A letter saying that the President’s actions “satisfy all of the elements for an obstruction charge” is an unprecedented rebuke of an Attorney General from former employees of the department he oversees.
As Michael Cohen was reporting to a federal prison in upstate New York on Monday, the start of a three-year sentence on charges of tax evasion and campaign-finance violations, Donald Trump was thoroughly enjoying himself, awarding a Presidential Medal of Freedom to the golfer Tiger Woods. The contrast between the fates of the fixer and his former boss could hardly have been more stark. But for the fact that he is sitting in the Oval Office, Trump could well be facing a criminal indictment on the same campaign-finance violation that sent Cohen to prison, which arose from payoffs made to the adult-film star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. And as Trump was bestowing the honor on Woods, who, perhaps coincidentally, has agreed to design a course at a new Trump development in Dubai, hundreds of former federal prosecutors were signing an online letter that says the President’s behavior toward the Russia investigation more than justified another indictment—for obstruction of justice.
The letter, which was posted on the Web site Medium, could hardly be more straightforward or damning. Its second paragraph states, “Each of us believes that the conduct of President Trump described in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report would, in the case of any other person not covered by the Office of Legal Counsel policy against indicting a sitting President, result in multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice.” When the letter was posted, it already had about three hundred and seventy signatories. By Tuesday morning, the number had grown to more than six hundred and fifty. Although some of the signatories were former prosecutors and Justice Department officials who were appointed by Democratic Presidents, a number of Republican lawyers and prosecutors had also signed up, including Bill Weld, the former governor of Massachusetts who is challenging Trump in the Republican Presidential primary, and Donald Ayer, who served as Deputy Attorney General in the Administration of George H. W. Bush.
In making the case that Trump obstructed justice, the letter singles out three of his alleged actions that are detailed in the Mueller report: his effort to get Don McGahn, the White House counsel at the time, to fire the special counsel; his attempt to limit the scope of the inquiry by instructing his former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, to carry a message to then Attorney General Jeff Sessions; and his repeated efforts to tamper with witnesses, including Cohen and Paul Manafort, by, among other things, raising the prospect of pardons.
The letter says Trump’s actions “satisfy all of the elements for an obstruction charge” and asserts that the evidence of “corrupt intent”—a key element of any obstruction case—is overwhelming. “We emphasize that these are not matters of close professional judgment,” its authors note. “Of course, there are potential defenses or arguments that could be raised in response to an indictment of the nature we describe here. In our system, every accused person is presumed innocent and it is always the government’s burden to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. But, to look at these facts and say that a prosecutor could not probably sustain a conviction for obstruction of justice — the standard set out in Principles of Federal Prosecution — runs counter to logic and our experience.”
That last sentence indicates that the letter was aimed at William Barr, the current Attorney General, as well as Trump. Indeed, the letter can be interpreted as an unprecedented rebuke of a sitting Attorney General from former employees of the department he oversees. Mueller had declined to reach a prosecutorial judgment on the obstruction-of-justice issue. In explaining why, he cited the Office of Legal Counsel policy on not indicting sitting Presidents and “fairness” concerns. It was Barr—along with Rod Rosenstein, the departing Deputy Attorney General—who decided that the special counsel’s report didn’t contain sufficient evidence to justify obstruction charges, despite the fact that, as Barr subsequently acknowledged under questioning by Senator Kamala Harris, he hadn’t looked at the underlying evidence.
So far, neither the White House nor the Justice Department has responded to the letter. When they get around to it, Trump and his supporters will undoubtedly seek to dismiss it as just another attack by partisan foes. Although the core group of former federal prosecutors who originated the letter hasn’t been identified, it is safe to assume that they are critics of Trump. Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan, nonprofit group that helped to organize and publicize the letter at the request of this group, and verify the identity of its signatories, was founded by two lawyers who worked in the White House under Barack Obama.
But Team Trump’s diversionary tactics shouldn’t be allowed to detract from the substance of the letter, or the fact that most of those who have attached their names to it aren’t even political appointees but, rather, long-serving career personnel. The full list, which appears at the end of the Medium article, shows that more than three hundred of the signatories served at the Department of Justice for at least a decade. A hundred and sixty of them racked up twenty years or more. More than sixty did at least thirty years. And two of them did forty years: John Kolar, a former senior trial counsel, and E. Thomas Roberts, who headed the narcotics division in the District of Maryland.
Looking through this list of individuals, it is clear that the signatories worked for many different parts of the Justice Department, in many parts of the country, at many different levels. There are former heads of major divisions, such as the financial-crimes and civil-fraud units, and former U.S. Attorneys (such as Weld). But there are also countless trial attorneys, appellate attorneys, and assistant U.S. Attorneys—the anonymous figures who prosecute cases on a day-to-day basis. And all of them are agreed that if Trump were sitting anywhere except the Oval Office, he would be facing a lengthy rap sheet.
As early as next week, or, perhaps more likely, after he has joined the ranks of former Justice Department employees, later this month, Mueller himself may get the chance to say in public whether he, too, agrees with this assertion. For some reason, the President isn’t keen to hear from him.
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