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by Ryan Goodman
April 15, 2019
On Friday the thirteenth October 1989, by happenstance the same day as the Black Friday market crash, news leaked of a legal memo authored by William Barr. He was then serving as head of the Justice Departments Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). It is highly uncommon for any OLC memo to make headlines. This one did because it was issued in unusual secrecy and concluded that the FBI could forcibly abduct people in other countries without the consent of the foreign state. The headline also noted the implication of the legal opinion at that moment in time. It appeared to pave the way for abducting Panamas leader, Gen. Manuel Noriega.
Members of Congress asked to see the full legal opinion. Barr refused, but said he would provide an account that summarizes the principal conclusions. Sound familiar? In March 2019, when Attorney General Barr was handed Robert Muellers final report, he wrote that he would summarize the principal conclusions of the special counsels report for the public.
When Barr withheld the full OLC opinion in 1989 and said to trust his summary of the principal conclusions, Yale law school professor Harold Koh wrote that Barrs position was particularly egregious. Congress also had no appetite for Barrs stance, and eventually issued a subpoena to successfully wrench the full OLC opinion out of the Department.
Whats different from that struggle and the current struggle over the Mueller report is that we know how the one in 1989 eventually turned out.
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https://www.justsecurity.org/63635/barrs-playbook-he-misled-congress-when-omitting-parts-of-justice-dept-memo-in-1989/
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It's deja vu all over again.
KPN
(15,646 posts)Grasswire2
(13,570 posts)Never forget!!!
Grasswire2
(13,570 posts)...that betrayed the Rule of Law on behalf of Republicans back then??!!
Oh, he's besties with Mueller. He's an institutionalist.
Well, we were played....................again.