steven engel ESQ

co wrote memo for barr ~ trump obstruction

an 8 22 ah

Since leaving the White House, former President Donald Trump hasn’t been shy about lambasting former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr— who he now despises for refusing to go along with the Big Lie and Trump’s false, totally debunked claim that widespread voter fraud occurred in the 2020 presidential election. Trump now views Barr as a Republican who, like former Vice President Mike Pence, didn’t have the courage to stick by him.

But before the election, Barr’s critics often slammed him for being a Trump loyalist who defended Trump vigorously after former Special Counsel Robert Mueller delivered his final report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Attorney Neal Katyal, in an op-ed published by the New York Times on August 30, offers some reasons why a recently released March 24, 2019 memo paints such a troubling picture of Barr and his relationship with then-President Trump.

The memo, released by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on August 21, details Barr’s justifications for the DOJ clearing Trump of obstruction charges. These days, Trump views Barr as a traitor to the MAGA cause. But in 2019, he praised Barr as someone who had the backbone to come through for him in a way that former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions didn’t.

“The memo released last week by the Justice Department closing the book on the report of Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 election is a frightening document,” explains Katyal, a former solicitor genreal who is often featured as a legal expert on MSNBC. “Critics have rightly focused on its substance, slipshod legal analysis and omission of damning facts. But the process by which that memo, sent in March 2019, came to be is just as worrisome.”

The attorney continues, “Delivered to the attorney general at the time, Bill Barr, the memo was written by two political appointees in the Justice Department. Mr. Barr used the memo to go around the special counsel regulations and to clear President Donald Trump of obstruction of justice. If left to fester, this decision will have pernicious consequences for investigations of future high-level wrongdoing.”

Katyal goes on to offer some more reasons why he finds the March 24, 2019 memo so troubling.As Katyal sees it, the memo is an example of the United States’ system of checks and balances being undermined during the Trump years.

“The 2019 memo tendentiously argued that Mr. Trump committed no crimes — leaving the final decision on the matter to Republican-aligned appointees instead of to the independent special counsel,” Katyal notes. “The challenge in devising the regulations was to develop a framework for the prosecution of high-level executive branch officials — which is harder than it sounds, because the Constitution requires the executive branch to control prosecutions. So, we are left with one of the oldest philosophical problems: Who will guard the guardians?”

During Mueller’s investigation, many MAGA Republicans tried to paint him as a Democratic partisan — even though the former FBI director was a conservative and a lifelong Republican who had been on very friendly terms with the George W. Bush Administration. But during the Russian investigation, Mueller’s admirers often praised him for valuing country over party. When Democrats and Never Trump conservatives used the word “institutionalist” to describe Mueller in 2017 or 2018, it was meant as high praise.

A special counsel in a federal investigation, Katyal stresses, needs to be someone who is independent rather than partisan — which Special Counsel Mueller was. But Barr, Katyal laments, undermined Special Counsel Mueller’s work in the end.

“We created the role of special counsel to fill a void — to concentrate in one person responsibility and ultimate blame so that investigations would not be covered up from the get-go and to give that person independence from political pressure,” Katyal writes. “It is outrageous that Mr. Barr acted so brazenly in the face of this framework. The point of requiring a special counsel was to provide for an independent determination of any potential criminal wrongdoing by Mr. Trump. But the political appointees in his Justice Department took what was the most important part of that inquiry — the decision of whether he committed crimes — and grabbed it for themselves. This was a fundamental betrayal of the special counsel guidelines not for some principle, but because it protected their boss, Mr. Trump.”

ref

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/08/bill-barr-donald-trumpjustice-department-mueller-obstruction-memo

bill **Barr** played a starring role in the January 6 committee’s public hearings this summer when he declared in videotaped testimony that Donald Trump’s election fraud claims were “bullshit,” “completely bullshit,” “stupid,” “crazy,” “complete nonsense,” and “a great, great disservice to the country.” But it’s important to remember that for the majority of the time he was serving as attorney general, Barr operated the Justice Department like it was the 45th president’s personal law firm and his title was “chief footstool to Donald Trump.” Yes, whether he was claiming, with a straight face, that the FBI had violated Trump’s “civil liberties,” using the DOJ to try to kill a rape defamation suit against the president, or attempting to bury the “urgent“ whistle-blower report that became the basis of the House’s first impeachment proceedings against Trump, Barr made his loyalties very, very clear. But in case you needed further evidence that the former AG was a total hack, today’s your lucky day!

On Wednesday, the government released the 2019 DOJ memo Barr used as justification for not charging Trump with obstructing the Mueller investigation, despite the fact that the special counsel found numerous instances of obstruction by Trump that could have resulted in him being charged with a crime, from firing FBI director James Comey and telling a White House lawyer to fire Robert Mueller to warning witnesses not to flip. Yet the memo, which was written, at Barr’s request, by Steven Engel, the former assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel, and Ed O’Callaghan, the principal associate deputy attorney general, insist none of that was worth taking legal action, a conclusion they came to based on what some say was a twisting of facts and legal falsehoods.

For starters, the memo argues that obstruction charges are usually brought when an individual blocks the investigation and prosecution of an underlying crime, and since the Mueller probe did not establish one, they shouldn‘t charge Trump. That, of course, is not how the law works, which is why if you hide evidence from the cops about an attempted murder that didn’t actually result in someone being killed, you’d very likely still be in trouble. Then, there’s the memo writers’ claim that because other people didn’t go along with Trump‘s attempts to obstruct justice, he shouldn’t be charged. This is, once again, not how the law works!

As former Veterans Affairs employee and Mueller, She Wrote podcast host Allison Gill tweeted Wednesday, “That would be like if I told the getaway driver to blow up the bank and [if] they didn’t, I’m off the hook.” The memo also wildly asserts, without evidence, that Trump did the things he did, like asking White House counsel Don McGahn to fire Mueller, “not for an illegal purpose, but rather because he believed the investigation was politically motivated and undermined his administration’s efforts to govern.” It also cites the fact that Trump never literally used the word fire to McGahn when he was talking about Mueller, probably because he operates like a mafia boss who speaks in code. (In sworn testimony, McGahn said Trump called him at home and told him “Mueller has to go” and “call me back when you do it.”) As for Trump then instructing McGahn to lie about trying to get Mueller fired, we already know the Barr DOJ’s thoughts there, given that while testifying, Barr told lawmakers it was “not a crime” for the president to demand staffers lie to investigators.

Responding to the memo on Twitter, Norm Eisen, an attorney and former U.S. ambassador, wrote: “No wonder a series of judges have slammed Barr for dishonesty in connection with all this. It’s garbage. Anyone else woulda been prosecuted. Barr should be disciplined.” Samuel Buell, a Duke University law professor and former prosecutor, told The New York Times: “It reads more like a defense lawyer’s brief than a full and balanced analysis citing the legal authorities.” Ryan Goodman, a New York University law professor, described the memo as a “get out of jail free” card, telling The Times: “It’s hard to stomach a memo that amounts to saying someone is not guilty of obstruction for deliberately trying to induce witnesses not to cooperate with law enforcement in a major criminal investigation.”

Last year, two federal courts concluded that Barr had already decided not to charge Trump before commissioning the memo, and signed it after informing Congress of his decision. When it was released in redacted form in May 2021, Judge Amy Berman Jackson wrote, “The agency’s redactions and incomplete explanations obfuscate the true purpose of the memorandum, and the excised portions belie the notion that it fell to the Attorney General to make a prosecution decision or that any such decision was on the table at any time. The fact that [Trump] would not be prosecuted was a given.”

steven Andrew Engel (born June 29, 1974)^[1][2] is an American lawyer. He served as the United States Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel in the Donald Trump administration.^[3] Engel, who previously worked in the George W. Bush administration as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel, was nominated by President Donald Trump on January 31, 2017, and confirmed on November 7, 2017.^[4] On January 20, 2021, he was succeeded by Christopher H. Schroeder, serving under the Biden Administration.^[5]

Early life and education[

Engel was born on June 29, 1974, in New Hyde Park, New York, a Long Island suburb of New York City.^[1] He was raised in Port Washington, New York and graduated as valedictorian from Paul D. Schreiber Senior High School in 1992, earning a bachelor's degree summa cum laude from Harvard University in 1996.^[1][6] From 1996–1997, Engel was a Knox Fellow at University of Cambridge.^[1][7][8] He was awarded a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School in 2000,^[1] and then clerked for Judge Alex Kozinski of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, followed by a clerkship for Justice Anthony Kennedy of the Supreme Court of the United States.^[1][9][3]

Early career[

Engel practiced law at Kirkland & Ellis from 2002 through 2006^[1] before serving as Deputy Assistant Attorney General at the Office of Legal Counsel during the George W. Bush administration from 2006 through 2009.^[1] In June 2009, Engel became a partner at Dechert, an international law firm.^[7][6][3]

Office of Legal Counsel[

On January 31, 2017, the White House announced that President Donald Trump intended to nominate Engel to serve as the Assistant Attorney General heading the Office of Legal Counsel.^[4][2] Engel's nomination was opposed by U.S. Senator John McCain, a former prisoner of war who was tortured while in captivity. McCain cited Engel's involvement in commenting on and reviewing one of the so-called "Torture memos" that signed off on six different "enhanced interrogation techniques."^[10] Various human rights groups expressed concerns about Engel's nomination, also citing his involvement with the July 20, 2007, memo authored by**Steven G. Bradbury**, then-head of the OLC.^[11] The Senate Judiciary Committee received support for the nomination from former Attorneys General Mukasay and Gonzales, other former senior executive branch officials, and the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association of the City of New York.^[12] Engel was confirmed by a 51–47 vote, largely along party lines with one Democrat, Senator Joe Manchin (West Virginia), voting in favor of confirmation.^[13]

In November 2017, Engel issued an opinion supporting the President’s appointment of Mick Mulvaney as the Acting Director of the Consumer Finance Protection Board under the Vacancies Reform Act.^[14]

In April 2018, Engel approved airstrikes launched by President Trump against facilities associated with Syria’s chemical-weapons program without congressional authorization.^[15] In March 2019, Engel issued a memorandum to Attorney General William Barr making the determination that the evidence laid out in the Mueller report did not support the conclusion that then-President Trump committed obstruction of justice.^[16] (This memo was ordered released in May 2021, and was finally released in August 2022.^[17])

In May 2019, Engel issued an opinion concluding that the former White House Counsel, Don McGahn, was immune from compelled congressional testimony.^[18] The House Judiciary Committee challenged that decision, and Engel’s opinion was rejected by U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, who was later nominated by Joe Biden to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Jackson’s opinion was twice reversed by a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit.^[19]

In June 2019, Engel issued an OLC opinion supporting the Justice Department's decision not to release Donald Trump's tax returns.^[20]

In September 2019, Engel authored the OLC opinion^[21] of the Justice Department to not forward the Trump–Ukraine scandal whistleblower complaint^[22] to Congress. The Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency concluded that Engel's opinion had a "chilling effect on effective oversight" and was "wrong as a matter of law and policy"; urging him to withdraw or modify it.^[23][24][25] Engel responded that the opinion had simply applied the law as it was written and that it did not construe the statutory provisions protecting whistleblowers.^[26]

impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump.^[27][28][29]

On September 9, 2020, President Donald Trump identified Engel among a list of potential future nominees to the Supreme Court.^[30]

In January 2021, after then-President Donald Trump's re-election bid failed, Trump undertook a number of unprecedented acts to overturn the 2020 election, including a pressure campaign to request the Justice Department to falsely claim fraud and invalidate the results of the election in key battleground states. Engel, along with Richard Donoghue and others, refused to carry out the scheme and reportedly threatened to resign if he replaced Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen with Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey B. Clark in an effort to overturn the election.^{[31][32][33][34][35][36]} On June 23, 2022, Engel testified in the fifth public hearing of the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack.

Private practice[

In May 2021, Dechert LLP announced that Engel had rejoined their law firm as a partner.^[37][38][39]

See also[

Steven Engel - Dechert LLP

https://www.dechert.com › people › steven-engel

Engel served as the Assistant Attorney General for the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel. As the head of the office, Mr. Engel served as the chief ...

Steven Engel - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Steven_Engel

Office of Legal Counsel — Steven Andrew Engel (born June 29, 1974) is an American lawyer. He served as the United States Assistant Attorney General ...

Early life and education · ‎Office of Legal Counsel

Hon. Steven A. Engel - The Federalist Society

https://fedsoc.org › contributors › steven-engel

Engel served as the Assistant Attorney General for the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel. As the head of the office, Mr. Engel served as the chief ...

Steve Engel - Partner - Dechert LLP | LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com › steve-engel-2377433

Washington, District of Columbia, United States · Partner · Dechert LLP

View Steve Engel's profile on LinkedIn, the world's largest professional community. ... Former Assistant Attorney General at U.S. Department of Justice.

Attorney General Sessions Welcomes Steven Engel As ...

https://www.justice.gov › ... › News

Nov 7, 2017 — Before joining Dechert, Engel served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Department's Office of Legal Counsel, where he provided legal ...

Steven A. Engel | C-SPAN.org

https://www.c-span.org › person › StevenAEngel

Steven A. Engel was an Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice with four videos in the C-SPAN Video Library; ...

Who is Steven Engel and why is he testifying in the Jan. 6 ...

https://www.pbs.org › newshour › politics › who-is-stev...

Jan 6, 2022 — Steven Engel, a top Justice Department official who resisted President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, ...

Steven Engel - Add Relationship - LittleSis

https://littlesis.org › person › 264288-Steven_Engel

Prior to joining Dechert in June 2009, Engel served as deputy assistant attorney general for the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel, where he provided legal ...

Why So Many of Trump's People Just Can't Resist Him

https://www.washingtonpost.com › business › 2022/06/23

Jun 24, 2022 — WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 23: (L-R) Steven Engel, former Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, Jeffrey Rosen, ...

A 'Graveyard' at DOJ: Takeaways from Ex-Justice Department ...

https://www.law.com › nationallawjournal › 2022/06/23

Jun 23, 2022 — Donoghue, former acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and Assistant Attorney General Steven Engel, former head of DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel ...

https://www.alternet.org/2022/08/bill-barr-should-be-disciplined/

Legal experts are reviewing a legal memo that served as the basis for Attorney General Bill Barr deciding to not charge then-President Donald Trump with obstruction of justice, and they are calling it “garbage,” “disingenuous,” a “total whitewash,” and “ass-covering.”

The memo, published Wednesday afternoon by The New York Times, is dated March 24, 2019.

“For the reasons stated below,” it reads in part, “we conclude that the evidence described in Volume II of the Report is not, in our judgment, sufficient to support a conclusion beyond a reasonable doubt that the President violated the obstruction-of-justice statutes. In addition, we believe that certain of the conduct examined by the Special Counsel could not, as a matter of law, support an obstruction charge under the circumstances. Accordingly, were there no constitutional barrier, we would recommend, under the Principles of Federal Prosecution, that you decline to commence such a prosecution.”

Norm Eisen, a well-known Harvard-educated attorney, former U.S. Ambassador, senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, and a CNN legal analyst calls the legal memo “garbage.”

“No wonder a series of judges have slammed Barr for dishonesty in connection with all this,” Eisen writes. “It’s garbage. Anyone else woulda been prosecuted. Barr should be disciplined.”

Attorney Andrew Weissman calls the memo “disingenuous” and a “total whitewash.”

He adds: “note no discussion of Barr telling Special Counsel Mueller that he should make the decision whether Trump obstructed justice. Why? Because new DOJ memo reveals they thought Mueller Report could be read to say he did obstruct! So Barr shd say the opposite.”

CNN Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig calls the memo “ass-covering.”

“To recap,” he writes, detailing these bullet points:

“Mueller failed by refusing to state a conclusion,” “Barr publicly distorted Mueller’s findings,” “DOJ drafted this flimsy, ass-covering memo,” “Barr misled a federal court about this bogus memo,” “Garland appealed on Barr’s behalf, and lost.”}:

This is a breaking news and developing story.