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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Justice Department on Wednesday released under court order all of a 2019 memo https://www.justice.gov/file/1528466/download in which two top officials advised then-Attorney General William Barr not to charge then-President Donald Trump with obstructing Special Counsel Robert Mueller's inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election. The March 24, 2019, memo was written by Steven Engel, then head of the department's Office of Legal Counsel, and Edward O'Callaghan, another top department official. They wrote that charging Trump with obstruction would be problematic because the entire first section of Mueller's report did not find sufficient evidence that Trump or...

The intelligence community secretly eliminated a requirement that whistleblowers provide direct, first-hand knowledge of alleged wrongdoings, raising questions about the intelligence community’s behavior regarding the August submission of a whistleblower complaint against President Donald Trump. The new complaint document no longer requires potential whistleblowers who wish to have their concerns expedited to Congress to have direct, first-hand knowledge of the alleged wrongdoing that they are reporting. The brand new version of the whistleblower complaint form, which was not made public until after the transcript of Trump’s July 25 phone call with the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and the complaint addressed...

RUSH: The first thing I want to play for you is Barr. We’re gonna go back (this is sound bite 22) to May 1st. This is a big deal, folks. This is the evidence that Mueller was just lying repeatedly today when he claimed that the only reason they didn’t come to a decision on obstructing justice, charging Trump with obstruction was the guidelines from the Office of Legal Counsel which say you cannot indict a sitting president. He said, “That’s why we didn’t do it.” Democrats just drilled down on that and drilled down on that. But it’s not...

In an interview with FOX News Channel's "MediaBuzz" host Howard Kurtz, professor emeritus at Harvard Law School Alan Dershowitz weighed in on the conclusion of the Mueller investigation and wondered if Mueller "knew he could not indict a sitting president under Justice Department regulations," "why did we have a special counsel at all?" HOWARD KURTZ, FOX NEWS: Joining us now is Alan Dershowitz, the Harvard Law professor who wrote the introduction to the Mueller report, the final report of the special counsel into Donald Trump, Russia, and collusion. Let me ask how the media have covered Robert Mueller, especially in...

Sufyan Ben Qumu was classified as a 'medium to high' national security risk before his release from American custody Qumu reportedly was Osama bin Laden's driver and worked for the al-Qaeda founder's company in Sudan Libyans promised to keep him behind bars, but he was released in 2010 Qumu was a former Libyan army tank driver and became a leader of the rebels during the uprising A former al-Qaeda terrorist released from Guantanamo Bay is believed to be the leader of the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans, including the US Ambassador, it was...

It’s not every day that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports that the Executive Office of the President violated federal law, but that’s the conclusion the GAO released in a report this month, after reviewing bilateral talks with the Chinese government hosted by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). The White House Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) disputes GAO’s analysis, arguing that the law does not constitutionally apply to the OSTP's diplomatic activities. The disagreement stems from meetings this past May in which officials from the OSTP met with representatives of the Chinese government to discuss...

It’s not every day that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports that the Executive Office of the President violated federal law, but that’s the conclusion the GAO released in a report this month, after reviewing bilateral talks with the Chinese government hosted by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). The White House Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) disputes GAO’s conclusion, arguing that the law does not constitutionally apply to the OSTP's diplomatic activities. The disagreement stems from meetings this past May in which officials from the OSTP met with representatives of the Chinese government to discuss...

The White House bypassed the administration’s own written guidelines for resolving major legal disputes when it overruled the Justice Department’s advice that the president seek congressional approval for U.S. military operations in Libya, according to some legal scholars. The disclosure over the weekend that President Barack Obama rejected the advice of senior Justice Department legal advisers — including Attorney General Eric Holder — has drawn sharp congressional criticism in recent days, ranging from House Speaker John Boehner to liberal Democrats such as Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York. It is also provoking debate among legal scholars, some of whom told...

We have plenty of basis and evidence that [Binyam] Mohammed is dangerous. But Holder’s sense of “responsibility ... as attorney general ... for the safety of this nation” did not stop him from agreeing to Mohammed’s release and transfer to England — where he now plots freely while on the British dole. Naturally, having discerned that all the tough talk was just that, talk, British authorities are back on the administration’s doorstep, demanding the release of Shaker Aamer. He’s a bin Laden confidant who trained aspiring terrorists at al-Qaeda camps, met with shoe-bomber Richard Reid, and traveled widely in the...

They were loyal conservatives, and Bush appointees. They fought a quiet battle to rein in the president's power in the war on terror. And they paid a price for it. A NEWSWEEK investigation. Feb. 6, 2006 issue - James Comey, a lanky, 6-foot-8 former prosecutor who looks a little like Jimmy Stewart, resigned as deputy attorney general in the summer of 2005. The press and public hardly noticed. Comey's farewell speech, delivered in the Great Hall of the Justice Department, contained all the predictable, if heartfelt, appreciations. But mixed in among the platitudes was an unusual passage. Comey thanked "people...