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What If the Problem Is Not with Special Counsels, But Instead the Presidency?

Rod Rosenstein protégé Robert Hur will testify before the House Judiciary Committee today. He decided to come represented by one of the Republican party’s best criminal defense attorney, Bill Burck, and supported by a spox, Sarah Isgur, who played a key role in several of the hit jobs that Hur carried out with Rosenstein.

He just resigned from DOJ yesterday, which — along with his partisan hit squad — has raised concerns about what he’ll say. It’s unclear what effect that will have. When John Durham did the same thing, he actually reined in some of the false claims he had made in his report. That said, Hur has the ability to weaponize the fact that Joe Biden provided so much voluntary cooperation, meaning that many of the details in Hur’s report — like the content of classified documents discovered or of Biden’s diaries that Hur renamed notebooks to be able to snoop through them — were not obtained with a subpoena and would not be covered by grand jury secrecy. Testifying without a DOJ minder can work both ways, however; Democrats could — and should — question Hur about topics, such as:

  • Whether his supervision eliminated the kind of ethical check other prosecutors have
  • How he used attorney-client communications as a weapon against Biden when Robert Mueller, under Hur’s supervision, did the opposite
  • What role he played in depriving Andrew McCabe of due process and whether that abuse came up in the hiring process to be Special Counsel

Here’s my coverage of Hur’s report:

Robert Hur’s Box-Checking

How Merrick Garland Mistook a Trump Hitman for a Career Prosecutor

Robert Hur Complained about Biden Notes that Trump Almost Certainly Already Declassified

In Advance of Robert Hur Hit Job, DOJ Updated Public Identification Policy

How Robert Hur Ghosted Joe Biden’s Ghost Writer

Robert Hur Snooped Through Joe Biden’s Diaries after White House Warned It Would Be Unprecedented

Navel-Gazing: The Ethics Problem Caused by Merrick Garland’s Brad Weinsheimer Solution

Also, since transcripts show that Hur wildly misrepresented the moments where Biden couldn’t remember years, here’s my post on how Hunter Biden, like his dad, signposts his life around the grief tied to Beau’s illness and death.

Like His Father, Hunter Biden Got Forgetful about Details Pertaining to Beau’s Illness

In advance of Hur’s testimony, several people are taking a broader view, considering some problems with the current Special Counsel regime.

Chuck Rosenberg wrote a thoughtful piece about how the reporting requirement creates a problem.

Jack Goldsmith wrote a silly piece that tries to both-sides the matter.

Neither grapples with the underlying question: How do you hold a President accountable to rule of law?

Meanwhile, the transcripts of Biden’s interview with Robert Hur have been released (one, two). They don’t show what Hur claimed. Indeed, they show that former IA US Attorney Marc Krickbaum tried to sandbag Biden into admitting he knew he had documents with classification marks and Biden called him on it.

 

In Advance of Robert Hur Hit Job, DOJ Updated Public Identification Policy

As Politico and NYT reported, there has been a fair amount of back and forth between lawyers for President Biden, Richard Sauber and Bob Bauer, and Bradley Weinsheimer, the career DOJ employee that Merrick Garland has put in the center of matters pertaining to Special Counsels.

I’ll come back to those more generally.

But I wanted to call attention to a particular part of the exchange. In a February 8 letter responding to a letter Biden’s attorneys sent to Merrick Garland, Weinsheimer excused Robert Hur’s gratuitous swipes at Biden this way:

Your claim that Special Counsel Hur inappropriately commented on uncharged conduct is misplaced. As an initial matter, as described above, rather than commenting on uncharged conduct, Special Counsel Hur was applying the evidence he gathered to the applicable law. While Department policy advises Department employees to exercise caution when describing uncharged conduct, the policy also provides that when considering a statement about uncharged individuals, deciding officials should consider whether public disclosure may advance a significant law enforcement interest, including [1] upholding the integrity of the investigation, and [2] whether the public has a significant need to know the information. [my emphasis and bracketed numbers]

As Biden’s attorneys described in their February 12 response, Weinsheimer’s response confused them at first, because they didn’t recognize the reference.

Then they found it in what they call “a recent addition to the Justice Manual.”

Finally, your letter also defends Special Counsel Hur’s comments by describing Department policy that, in your words, “provides that when considering a statement about uncharged individuals, deciding officials should consider whether public disclosure may advance a significant law enforcement interest, including upholding the integrity of the investigation, and whether the public has a significant need to know the information.” You did not provide a citation for this reference, and we were puzzled at its use as a defense of Special Counsel Hur’s conduct since we were unfamiliar with this language. Our uncertainty about the provenance of this reference and its applicability in this case was justified when we discovered that it appears to stem from a recent addition to the Justice Manual that has nothing to do with prosecutorial comments about uncharged conduct. That provision, Justice Manual 9-27.760, addresses whether it is appropriate to identify “by name or unnecessarily specific description” an uncharged party. It does not speak to appropriate “statements about uncharged individuals,” as you state. [my emphasis]

That got me looking for this “recent addition.”

Lo and behold, this month, February 2024, DOJ added a bunch of new language to the section of the Justice Manual describing “9-27.760 – Limitation on Identifying Uncharged Parties Publicly” (see the precursor). In addition to tweaking its applicability from those “officially” charged to those “publicly” charged, it added a bunch of new language. That language requires approval from a US Attorney, Assistant Attorney General, “or their designee,” before identifying someone in prosecution filings or a declination. It lists factors to consider.

For the same reasons, following the conclusion of a case (whether by closing of an investigation or conclusion of a prosecution), DOJ personnel should not publicly disclose the identity (either by name or unnecessarily specific description) of uncharged parties absent approval of the United States Attorney or Assistant Attorney General, or their designee. When evaluating whether to grant approval, the United States Attorney or Assistant Attorney General, or their designee, may consider factors such as:

  • The privacy, safety, and reputational interests of uncharged parties;
  • The potential effect of any statements on ongoing criminal investigations or prosecutions, see JM 1-7.6001-7.610;
  • Whether public disclosure may advance significant law enforcement interests, such as where release of information is necessary to protect public safety or uphold the integrity of the law enforcement investigation; and
  • Other legitimate and compelling governmental interests, including whether the public has a significant need to know the information.

Public statements concerning the identity of uncharged parties following the conclusion of a case are permissible only if the legitimate and compelling government interests served, including law enforcement interests, substantially outweigh the privacy and reputational interests of the uncharged parties. To the extent a public statement regarding uncharged parties meets this standard and is otherwise permitted by law, such disclosure must be limited to the extent necessary to advance the government interests served by the disclosure.

Significant justification for identifying uncharged parties commonly exists where it is ordered by the Court, is necessary to protect the integrity of the case, or assists the government in meeting its burden of proof. In these instances, the use of generalized terms or descriptions may be unfeasible or insufficient or may create confusion or false impressions for the judge or jury. For example, in conspiracy trials, the identity and conduct of uncharged parties are often highly relevant to the government’s case, and it is not feasible to shield that individual’s identity in proving the case. In such instances where significant justification exists relating to court proceedings and pleadings, prior approval by the appropriate United States Attorney or Assistant Attorney General is not necessary.

[updated February 2024] [my emphasis]

As Sauber and Bauer note, this section is not about whether you can call someone a doddering old man in a declination statement, it’s about whether you can name someone who has not been in a declination statement at all (for example, Hur named some, but not all, of the people interviewed in his report, including Biden’s ghost writer, who was already facing hacking threats). It simply is inapplicable.

But I find it just as interesting that Weinsheimer used language that could only have predated the draft report by days if not hours (the White House had reviewed and responded to the report by February 5). And he took that as permission to attack the doddering old man, rather than a restriction on doing so.

Frankly, I’m unsympathetic to some of the White House concerns. The report was and should have been made public. That’s not the problem.

The problem is it’s a shitty report that gets the law wrong, uses a political lens to assess key details (like Hur’s distinction between Ronald Reagan’s “diaries” and Biden’s “notebooks”), and takes unncessary swipes at Biden.

I think it was equally inappropriate for Hur to compare Biden’s conduct with Trump’s. That’s not his job, and having botched the analysis of 18 USC 793(e) (not to mention missed that unlike Biden, Trump had been cut off from classified briefings after leaving office), his comparison is useless.

Weinsheimer seems to be suggesting it was cool for Hur to attack the doddering old man and weigh in on an investigation he’s not involved in to defend his own failed prosecution. He’s fooling himself if he thinks this reassures the public.

The Executive Privilege Puzzle: The Co-Equal Branch of Government

As I noted during the summer, DOJ did two things in close succession.

On July 21, it rolled out the contacts policy that codifies that, “the Justice Department will not advise the White House concerning pending or contemplated criminal or civil law enforcement investigations or cases unless doing so is important for the performance of the President’s duties and appropriate from a law enforcement perspective.” At least from that point forward, Joe Biden would learn no details of the investigation into his predecessor unless absolutely necessary.

On July 26, DOJ wrote Jeffrey Rosen and several other former senior DOJ officials — including Jeffrey Clark —  informing them that DOJ was waiving privilege for interviews the House and Senate wanted to conduct on, “any efforts by President Trump or any DOJ officials to advance unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud, challenge the 2020 election results, stop Congress’s count of the Electoral College vote, or overturn President Biden’s certified victory.” As the letter from Bradley Weinsheimer laid out, this permission arose from a balancing of Legislative and Executive branch interests and determining that the Legislative interest was so significant as to warrant the waiver.

After balancing the Legislative and Executive Branch interests, as required under the accommodation process, it is the Executive Branch’s view that this presents an exceptional situation in which the congressional need for information outweighs the Executive Branch’s interest in maintaining confidentiality.

The letter continues by explaining that DOJ consulted with the White House Counsel’s Office to get their approval for waiving Executive Privilege.

Because of the nature of the privilege, the Department has consulted with the White House Counsel’s Office in considering whether to authorize you to provide information that may implicate the presidential communications privilege. The Counsel’s Office conveyed to the Department that President Biden has decided that it would not be appropriate to assert executive privilege with respect to communications with former President Trump and his advisors and staff on matters related to the scope of the Committees’ proposed interviews, notwithstanding the view of former President Trump’s counsel that executive privilege should be asserted to prevent testimony regarding these communications. See Nixon v. Administrator of General Servs., 433 U.S. 425, 449 (1977) (“[I]t must be presumed that the incumbent President is vitally concerned with and in the best position to assess the present and future needs of the Executive Branch, and to support invocation of the privilege accordingly.” see also id. (explaining that the presidential communications privilege “is not for the benefit of the President as an individual, but for the benefit of the Republic”) (internal citation omitted).

These events seems to have set up the series of developments — including Trump’s lawsuit to attempt to prevent the Archives from turning over documents to Congress, and aborted attempts by Jeffrey Clark, Steve Bannon, and Mark Meadows, among others, to shield their own testimony by invoking Executive Privilege.

As was laid out in the DC Circuit hearing the other day, this put the Executive Branch and the Legislative Branch in agreement that the documents Congress requested from the Archives should be released.

You’ve got Biden insulated from investigative details, making decisions about Executive Privilege for an investigation being conducted by a coequal branch of government.

Which is one of the reasons why I find Adam Schiff’s comments from the other day so interesting. When asked if he wanted DOJ to be more aggressive, Schiff did not assent. Instead, he said that “it is certainly possible” Congress’ effort to “expose the malefactors” “will inform the Justice Department of other facts that they may not yet be aware of yet.”

We are now trying to expose the full facts of the former President’s misconduct, as well as those around him. It is certainly possible that what we reveal in our investigation will inform the Justice Department of other facts that they may not yet be aware of yet. And so we will pursue our role in this, which is to expose the malefactors, to bring about legislation as a result of our investigation, to protect the country. But we will count on the Justice Department to play its role.

There’s a high likelihood the January 6 Commission will discover things DOJ has not found on its own. After all, Biden is waiving privilege for their inquiry, not for DOJ’s criminal investigation. So the Jan 6 is (or soon will be) examining a set of materials that are — as far as we know — otherwise inaccessible to DOJ. But, Schiff assures us, if they find something that DOJ doesn’t know about, they’ll inform DOJ.

As I’ve noted and as Schiff knows well, Mueller relied on the Intelligence Committee investigations for key evidence in his investigation. But here, it seems like the dual investigations provides a way to free up otherwise privileged materials involving Trump without having Biden violate contact rules prohibiting him learning about the ongoing criminal investigation.

Why Did DOJ Delay Seven Months before Letting Jeffrey Rosen Testify?

On January 22 — after Jeffrey Rosen was no longer Acting Attorney General but before Trump’s second impeachment trial — Katie Benner published a story describing Trump’s efforts to get Jeffrey Bossert Clark to undermine those at DOJ, including Rosen and Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue, who refused to endorse Trump’s lies about the election.

As I noted the other day, that story included all the details that have been dribbling out from the House Oversight Committee in recent weeks: Trump’s efforts to get DOJ to intervene in Georgia, Rosen and Donoghue’s refusal, followed by Trump’s effort to put Clark in charge at DOJ on January 3. Benner had all that nailed in January.

The day after Benner’s January 22 story, the holdover members of the Senate Judiciary Committee sent a letter to DOJ citing the story and asking for documents behind it.

On January 22, The New York Times reported astonishing details about an alleged plot between then-President Donald Trump and then-Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Division Jeffrey Bossert Clark to use the Department of Justice to further Trump’s efforts to subvert the results of the 2020 presidential election.[1]  These efforts culminated on January 6, when Trump incited a violent mob that attacked Congress as it counted the electoral votes and prepared to affirm President Biden’s victory.  The information revealed by this story raises deeply troubling questions regarding the Justice Department’s role in Trump’s scheme to overturn the election.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will conduct vigorous oversight of these matters.  As a first step, we seek your immediate assurance that the Department will preserve all relevant materials in its possession, custody, or control.  Please also produce the following materials as soon as possible, but no later than February 8, 2021:

  • All documents and communications, including emails, text messages, and calendar entries, referring or related to the reported December 15 meeting between then-President Trump and then-Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and reported follow-up calls and meetings between President Trump and Mr. Rosen;
  • All documents and communications, including emails, text messages, and calendar entries, referring or related to reported complaints President Trump made to Justice Department leaders regarding then-U.S. Attorney Byung J. Pak prior to Pak’s resignation;
  • All documents and communications, including emails, text messages, and calendar entries, regarding a reported draft letter that Mr. Clark prepared and requested be sent to Georgia state legislators; and
  • All documents and communications, including emails, text messages, and calendar entries, involving the reported January 3 White House meeting involving Mr. Clark and Mr. Rosen.

That letter set a deadline of February 8, over a month before Merrick Garland was confirmed and over 70 days before Lisa Monaco was confirmed.

In May, House Oversight Chair Carolyn Maloney sent Rosen a request (which hasn’t been made public) for a transcribed interview.

Seemingly in response to that — though the letter cites both the January request and the May one — DOJ (in the guise of Bradley Weinsheimer, who was elevated from NSD to DOJ’s institutional accountability role at Associate Deputy Attorney General by Jeff Sessions, and so was a colleague of those DOJ officials), wrote Rosen and five other former top DOJ officials permitting them to testify about a carefully defined set of events. The testimony is basically limited to, “any efforts by President Trump or any DOJ officials to advance unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud, challenge the 2020 election results, stop Congress’s count of the Electoral College vote, or overturn President Biden’s certified victory.” It is limited to events that happened after Attorney General Barr resigned on December 14. The letter specifically prohibits discussing any prosecutorial decisions the men made, or discussing investigations that were ongoing when they left.

Discussion of any pending criminal cases and possible charges also could violate court rules and potentially implicate rules of professional conduct governing extra-judicial statements.

But within that scope, the letter permits these former DOJ officials to answer questions that would otherwise be covered by executive privilege.

[T]he Department authorizes you to provide unrestricted testimony to the Committees, irrespective of potential privilege, so long as the testimony is confined to the scope of the interviews as set forth by the Committees and as limited in the penultimate paragraph below.

Of particular note, DOJ asked President Biden — via the White House Counsel — whether he wanted to invoke privilege; he chose not to.

Because of the nature of the privilege, the Department has consulted with the White House Counsel’s Office in considering whether to authorize you to provide information that may implicate the presidential communications privilege. The Counsel’s Office conveyed to the Department that President Biden has decided that it would not be appropriate to assert executive privilege with respect to communications with former President Trump and his advisors and staff on matters related to the scope of the Committees’ proposed interviews, notwithstanding the view of former President Trump’s counsel that executive privilege should be asserted to prevent testimony regarding these communications. See Nixon v. Administrator of General Servs., 433 U.S. 425, 449 (1977) (“[I]t must be presumed that the incumbent President is vitally concerned with and in the best position to assess the present and future needs of the Executive Branch, and to support invocation of the privilege accordingly.” see also id. (explaining that the presidential communications privilege “is not for the benefit of the President as an individual, but for the benefit of the Republic”) (internal citation omitted).

As Benner wrote in a story offering details of Jeffrey Rosen’s testimony, Rosen has been trying to get permission to testify for “much of the year.” As soon as DOJ gave it, he rushed to testify before Trump could intervene.

Mr. Rosen has spent much of the year in discussions with the Justice Department over what information he could provide to investigators, given that decision-making conversations between administration officials are usually kept confidential.

Douglas A. Collins, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, said last week that the former president would not seek to bar former Justice Department officials from speaking with investigators. But Mr. Collins said he might take some undisclosed legal action if congressional investigators sought “privileged information.”

Mr. Rosen quickly scheduled interviews with congressional investigators to get as much of his version of events on the record before any players could ask the courts to block the proceedings, according to two people familiar with those discussions who are not authorized to speak about continuing investigations.

He also reached out directly to Michael E. Horowitz, the Justice Department’s inspector general, and pledged to cooperate with his investigation, according to a person briefed on those talks.

The question is why. After all, these events were knowable to DOJ since they happened, and for the entirety of that time, DOJ has been conducting an investigation into efforts to obstruct the vote count. For some of that period, in fact, Rosen himself was in ultimate charge of the investigation, and he could have ordered or authorized himself to testify.

Benner didn’t specify whether Rosen might have been interviewed by the FBI, though the implication is he has not been asked.

Similarly, DOJ IG has been investigating related issues since then as part of a specific investigation into the BJ Pak firing and a general investigation into January 6. While Michael Horowitz could not subpoena Rosen, he could simply have asked Rosen to provide testimony. But Benner is quite clear that Rosen has not yet testified even to Horowitz.

During that period, too, there was an instance where DOJ IG asked someone for an interview, but the person quit to avoid the testimony.

During the course of an ongoing administrative misconduct investigation, the Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) informed a then senior DOJ official, who was a non-career member of the Senior Executive Service, that the senior DOJ official was a subject in the investigation and that the OIG sought to interview the senior DOJ official in connection with the investigation. After several unsuccessful attempts to schedule a voluntary interview with the senior DOJ official, the OIG instructed the senior DOJ official to appear for a compelled interview and informed the senior DOJ official that neither the answers the senior DOJ official provided nor any evidence gained by reason of those answers could be used against the senior DOJ official in a criminal proceeding. The senior DOJ official failed to appear for the compelled interview and resigned from Department employment shortly thereafter.

The OIG concluded that the senior DOJ official violated both federal regulations and DOJ policy by failing to appear for a compelled OIG interview while still a DOJ employee. The OIG offered the senior DOJ official the opportunity to cure that violation by participating in a voluntary interview after leaving the Department, but the senior DOJ official, through counsel, declined to do so. The OIG has the authority to compel testimony from current Department employees upon informing them that their statements will not be used to incriminate them in a criminal proceeding. The OIG does not have the authority to compel or subpoena testimony from former Department employees, including those who retire or resign during the course of an OIG investigation.

Those events were reported on April 19.

There are two more dates of interest. First, DOJ only released its new contact policy — under which the request for a privilege determination may have been passed — on July 21. I’m curious whether the request for a  waiver of executive privilege waiver came after that. Executive privilege considerations were a key limitation on the Mueller investigation overseen in its final days partly by Rosen himself.

At least as interesting, however, is that DOJ sent the letter just one day before DOJ submitted a court filing in the Eric Swalwell lawsuit — speaking of members of Congress but using more generalized language — arguing that no federal officials can campaign in their official capacity and further noting that attacking one’s employer is not within the scope of someone’s job description.

The record indicates that the January 6 rally was an electioneering or campaign activity that Brooks would ordinarily be presumed to have undertaken in an unofficial capacity. Activities specifically directed toward the success of a candidate for a partisan political office in a campaign context—electioneering or campaign activities—are not within the scope of the office or employment of a Member of the House of Representatives. Like other elected officials, Members run for reelection themselves and routinely campaign for other political candidates. But they do so in their private, rather than official, capacities.

This understanding that the scope of federal office excludes campaign activity is broadly reflected in numerous authorities. This Court, for example, emphasized “the basic principle that government funds should not be spent to help incumbents gain reelection” in holding that House or Senate mailings aimed at that purpose are “unofficial communication[s].” Common Cause v. Bolger, 574 F. Supp. 672, 683 (D.D.C. 1982) (upholding statute that provided franking privileges for official communications but not unofficial communications).

[snip]

Second, the Complaint alleges that Brooks engaged in a conspiracy and incited the attack on the Capitol on January 6. That alleged conduct plainly would not qualify as within the scope of employment for an officer or employee of the United States, because attacking one’s employer is different in kind from any authorized conduct and not “actuated . . . by a purpose to serve” the employer. Id. § 228(1)(c). Brooks does not argue otherwise. Instead, he denies the Complaint’s allegations of conspiracy and incitement. The Department does not address that issue here because the campaign-related nature of the rally independently warrants denial of certification, and because the Department is engaged in ongoing investigations into the events of January 6 more generally. But if the Court were to reject our argument that the campaign nature of the January 6 rally resolves the certification question, the Court should not certify that Brooks was acting within the scope of his office or employment unless it concludes that Brooks did not engage in the sort of conduct alleged in the Complaint. [my emphasis]

It’s possible that this seven month delay is inexcusable.

It’s also possible that it reflects the time DOJ took to come to other determinations about whether privileged information could be used to investigate a former President and if so how to obtain it.

Update: On both June 24,

I assure the American people that the Department of Justice will continue to follow the facts in this case and charge what the evidence supports to hold all January 6th perpetrators accountable.

And July 6,

The Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General encouraged the team to continue to follow the facts in this case and charge what the evidence supports to hold all January 6th perpetrators accountable.

Garland made statements reiterating his commitment to charge all perpetrators against whom the evidence supported charges.