Schiff just demanded a tranche of docs from DOJ concerning withholding of whistleblower complaint

[kpete]

Schiff just demanded a tranche of documents from the Department of Justice, concerning withholding of whistleblower complaint.

Importantly, Schiff says this is a demand pursuant to the House's impeachment inquiry:

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[Iliyah]

1. Criminal Barr feels he to is above the law just like the

republicans and shithole.

[RAB910]

3. Trump had to look under a lot of rocks to find an AG as criminal and treasonous as he is

[2naSalit]

4. Or...

Epstein's little black book.

[Wounded Bear]

13. Worse, Barr feels like he controls the law...

that's the scary part.

[Mike 03]

2. Is the difference now that if the DOJ refuses to honor these requests they are subject

to immediate criminal penalties, instead of this having to be fought in courts?

[FBaggins]

6. Nope

It's just a formal request by letter. It actually carries less weight than a subpoena (which could still theoretically be ignored until enforce by court order). He can get away with it because much of what he has on the list has supposedly already been agreed to.

But there's nothing that Congress can do (even with bipartisan majorities of both chambers agreeing) that would make the DOJ "subject to immediate criminal penalties". They don't have that power.

[Pacifist Patriot]

8. From what I can tell, no.

An oversight request from Congress is an oversight request. I can't find where being related to an official impeachment inquiry gives it more or less legal weight with expedited penalties. A lot of uncharted waters when it comes to impeachment. I would not be surprised at all if we see a lot of wrangling in court result from these requests.

[Thomas Hurt]

5. Under Item 1....

They left out "any legal fictions or fabrications devised to obstruct any further investigations into this matter".

Let's just be honest.

[NightWatcher]

7. Barr earned his stripes getting everyone off in Iran Contra

And he was brought in to coverup again.

[BSdetect]

11. Hope Barr gets tangled up in these crimes. And Disbarred. Prison long term.

[gibraltar72]

9. Are they preparing to impeach Barr also??

[GusBob]

10. its not the crime its the cover up

and if its a conspiracy its a crime

[ffr]

12. That's the way to do it.

[librechik]

14. They have to do Barr too.

All the beasts and crawlies will fly out--and with this crowd we'd better man up and get laser weapons.

[defacto7]

15. I really like #5.

"previous whistleblower complaint[s]"

[neohippie]

16. About that call transcript

Apparently the call lasted about 30 minutes, the released transcript if read aloud takes up about 11 minutes of that time,

What happened for the other 19 minutes?

Link to tweet

Memorandum of Phone Conversation: call was 9:03 - 9:33

Estimated time it would take to say all of the words released in the memo: 11 minutes.

Checked by the great
@mike_melia
in our broadcast software (time of spoken words matters a lot on TV) from
@NewsHour

[LudwigPastorius]

19. It's not really a transcript of the call.

This disclaimer, preceding the document released, explains:

CAUTION: A Memorandum of a Telephone Conversation (TELCON) is not a verbatim transcript of a discussion. The text in this document records the notes and recollections of Situation Room Duty Officers and NSC policy staff assigned to listen and memorialize the conversation in written form as the conversation takes place.

This was probably one reason that Trump was so gung-ho to release it. It gives him wiggle room when alternate (truthful) versions of the call come out. There is little doubt in my mind that what he released had been altered to portray him in the best possible light.

I now believe the whistleblower was either A) a member of the mentioned Situation Room Duty Officers or NSC policy staff B) a CIA or NSA agent assigned to listen to all communications made by President Zelensky, or more improbably C) a member of Trump's inner circle that was actually in the Oval Office when the call was made.

[FakeNoose]

17. Adam Schiff is a former DA and I'm sure he can handle this

... but he has a LOT on his plate right now. A lot of balls are in the air, and suddenly he's in the spotlight.
It would be nice if some if the Senate Democratic leadership came forward and took some of the brunt of this. How many investigations can Schiff handle at the same time?

[LudwigPastorius]

18. So, a crime AND a coverup...

Just add that to the list of Trump's previous attempts to obstruct justice.

At a minimum we've got:

Obstruction of Justice (X2 Witholding the whistleblower complaint, and firing Comey for "the Russia thing"..)

Abuse of Power (X2 Using the Office of the President to try to kickstart a foreign investigation of a political opponent, and reassuring White House aids that he would pardon them should they break the law in fulfilling his border wall orders...)

Violation of Campaign Finance Law (X2 Stormy Daniels payoff, and Ukraine investigation request...)

Criminal Conspiracy (see Michael Cohen/Stormy Daniels payoff...)


...and we're just getting started here. Violation of the Constitutional ban on emoluments should be in there too.