Trump Would Have Been Charged If He Weren't President, Say Hundreds of Federal Prosecutors

This is extraordinary: More than 600 (and counting) alumni of the Department of Justice are signatories on a piece published by former federal prosecutors bluntly asserting that Donald Trump would have been charged with multiple felonies for obstruction of justice, based on the contents of Special Counsel Bob Mueller's report, had Trump not been the sitting president.

We are former federal prosecutors. We served under both Republican and Democratic administrations at different levels of the federal system: as line attorneys, supervisors, special prosecutors, United States Attorneys, and senior officials at the Department of Justice. The offices in which we served were small, medium, and large; urban, suburban, and rural; and located in all parts of our country.

Each of us believes that the conduct of [Donald] 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.

The Mueller report describes several acts that satisfy all of the elements for an obstruction charge: conduct that obstructed or attempted to obstruct the truth-finding process, as to which the evidence of corrupt intent and connection to pending proceedings is overwhelming.

...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.

As former federal prosecutors, we recognize that prosecuting obstruction of justice cases is critical because unchecked obstruction — which allows intentional interference with criminal investigations to go unpunished — puts our whole system of justice at risk. We believe strongly that, but for the OLC memo, the overwhelming weight of professional judgment would come down in favor of prosecution for the conduct outlined in the Mueller Report.

There is much more at the link.

So, a couple of very important takeaways here:

1. This statement is further confirmation that Attorney General Bill Barr is derelict in his duty to We the People. He is not acting in our interests, as his office is meant to do, but instead acting to protect a corrupt president who has broken the law.

2. This statement make plain the crisis we face as a nation: If a president with contempt for the law is above the law, then there will never be any consequences for his lawbreaking, and our democracy is lost.

House Democrats must initiate impeachment proceedings immediately. The rule of law must matter.