Judge orders release of Trump obstruction memo, accuses Barr of being 'disingenuous'
By Harper Neidig - 05/04/21 02:28 PM EDT
A federal judge has ordered the Department of Justice (DOJ) to release a March 2019 legal memo that advised then-Attorney General William Barr that the special counsel's investigation did not support prosecuting former President Trump, issuing a scathing decision that accused Barr and department lawyers of deceiving the public.
District Judge Amy Berman Jackson on Monday ordered the DOJ to release the legal memo in two weeks in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the liberal watchdog group Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington.
The DOJ had argued in court that the full memo, portions of which have already been released, should be withheld because it fell under exceptions to the public records law for attorney-client privilege and deliberative government decisionmaking.
But Jackson said on Monday that those claims were not consistent with her own review of the unredacted memo or the timeline revealed by internal emails among top Justice Department officials.
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https://thehill.com/regulation/551755-judge-orders-release-of-trump-obstruction-memo-accuses-barr-of-being-disingenuous