The order appointing me special counsel authorized us to investigate actions that could obstruct the investigation. We conducted that investigation, and we kept the office of the acting attorney general apprised of the progress of our work. And as set forth in the report, after that investigation,
if we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so.
We did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime. The introduction to the Volume II of our report
explains that decision. It explains that
under longstanding department policy [Cat Mom Note: the OLC],
a president cannot be charged with a federal crime while he is in office. That is unconstitutional. Even if the charge is kept under seal and hidden from public view, that, too, is prohibited. A special counsel’s office is part of the Department of Justice, and by regulation, it was bound by that department policy.
Charging the president with a crime was therefore not an option we could consider. The department’s written opinion explaining the policy makes several important points that further informed our handling of the obstruction investigation. Those points are summarized in our report, and I will describe two of them for you.
First, the opinion explicitly permits the investigation of a sitting president,
because it is important to preserve evidence while memories are fresh and documents available [Cat Mom Note: In other words, to preserve the evidence for Congress, which CAN indict a sitting President via Impeachment]. Among other things, that evidence could be used if there were co-conspirators who could be charged now.
And second, the opinion says that
the Constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing [
Cat Mom Note: THIS MEANS IMPEACHMENT BY CONGRESS]. And beyond department policy, we were guided by principles of fairness. It would be unfair to potentially — it would be unfair to potentially accuse somebody of a crime when there can be
no court resolution of the actual charge. [
Cat Mom Note: This means no court, meaning CONGRESS has to be the Court]
So that was Justice Department policy. Those were the principles under which we operated. And from them, we concluded that we would not reach a determination one way or the other about whether the president committed a crime. That is the office’s final position, and we will not comment on any other conclusions or hypotheticals about the president. We conducted an independent criminal investigation and reported the results to the attorney general, as required by department regulations.
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Originally Posted by theimage13
