Ratcliffe to Mueller: ‘Prosecutors Never, Ever Need to Conclusively Determine’ Presumption of Innocence
“Everyone is entitled to it, including sitting presidents.”
Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) went after Robert Mueller over his conclusion that his team could not exonerate Trump on obstruction of justice:
Giving Mr. Mueller little chance to response, Mr. Ratcliffe said it was inappropriate for a prosecutor to try to exonerate someone. Pressing further, Mr. Ratcliffe asked Mr. Mueller if he could name another instance of the Justice Department stating that someone was not exonerated other than Mr. Trump
“I cannot,” Mr. Mueller said.
“Because there is a presumption of innocence, prosecutors never, ever need to conclusively determinate it,” Mr. Ratcliffe said, accusing Mr. Mueller of violating the standard operating procedure of prosecutors.
“Everyone is entitled to it, including sitting presidents,” Mr. Ratcliffe said. He also accused Mr. Mueller of not following the special-counsel regulations.
“Nowhere in here does it say write here in a report about decisions not reached,” he said, referring to Mr. Mueller’s declining to reach a determination whether or not Mr. Trump had commited obstruction of justice.
Rep. Ratcliffe asks Mueller if DOJ has any policy at all that allows an official to say an American who is not charged is "not exonerated," and whether anyone other than Donald Trump has been so tarred. Mueller is unable to name a policy or think of such an example.
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) July 24, 2019
.@RepRatcliffe is completely humiliating Robert Mueller and the Democrats on the question of presumption of innocence. The whole "did not exonerate" issue is complete garbage and Ratcliffe just blew it up. Disgrace that the House Judiciary Committee would even consider such trash
— Joel Pollak (@joelpollak) July 24, 2019
https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/1154016238504468480
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Comments
Better not to pontificate but ask direct questions mueller has to answer yes or no
5 minutes is not a very long time
All that Mueller will say is “umm… not my purview” or “huh? report? what report?” or he will just mumble incoherently until Nadler yells “TIMES UP!!!”
That is working so far.
Mic drop.
Here Mueller looks I’ll. He should. His whole gig was to damn Trump regardless of the law. Here Mueller knows this but assembled a team specifically to do damage in any way they could against the sitting President who was duly elected.
Nadler will need to clean out his Depends after being made to publicly look like the fool he is.
I would only object that Mueller didn’t assemble the team. Mueller chose Andrew Weissmann to once more engage in dishonest prosecutorial misconduct and select and run the “team” as Weissmann saw fit.
@gonzotx 100% agree. Let him yet to answer the hard questions.
It cannot be emphasized too much that the prosecutor’s role is not to exonerate ot exculpate. Rather, it is to find sufficient evidence of wrongdoing that will lead to a verdict of guilty. Everytime Mueller says he has not exonerated or exculpated President Trump, he reveals himself to be the dirty incompetent cop he is.
Great points by Ratcliffe. Apparently, the Dhimmi-crats believe that Dhimmi-crat apparatchiks, exclusively, deserve the benefit of the presumption of innocence, but GOP pols do not.
“His whole gig was to damn Trump regardless of the law. Here Mueller knows this but assembled a team specifically to do damage …..”
*****
I suspect that it was just the opposite. The “Team” (Weissman?) selected Mueller to provide cover for their part of the coup.
Agreed, Mueller supplied his name and former reputation for this effort to depose the President.
Future CNN chiron later tonight: “Republicans beat up dottering old man”
The only time an AG of any sort said someone was totally innocent was in the aftermath of the Duke lacrosse case. Here’s CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/LAW/04/11/cooper.transcript/index.html
And even then, CNN using effin’ scare quotes. MFM.
After the mud they were dragged through for no good reason, they deserved a resounding declaration of innocence.
I’m not certain this was only about Trump. It served as much to protect Hilary from investigation as it did to attack Trump.
More than that. leaving aside what a Trump administration could uncover about the last administration, once the illegal abuse of power was unleashed to destroy Trump before his election a narrative had to be constructed to cover the tracks. There was a whole lot of collusion in the Obama administration, much centering about achieving a crappy deal. What better way to create a cancelling frequency to amplify than the Trump Collusion meme? For a decade many have denied journalism acted as a political tool. Any morning starting at 7am. the evidence is front and center. Akerman advocated more than a decade ago to use racism to take down Republicans.