https://conservativebrief.com/biden-jus ... edium=RP78
OPINION: This article contains commentary which reflects the author's opinion
Joe Biden’s Department of Justice, and its leader, Attorney General Merrick Garland, just made a decision that has made some Democrats furious.
The department announced on Monday that it was going to partially appeal a court decision that called for a memorandum penned by former Attorney General Bill Barr, which said that President Donald Trump did not obstruct justice during the Russia investigation, to be released, Fox News reported.
The DOJ announced its decision just before the midnight deadline and appealed to U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson to stay her May 3 decision during the appeal process.
The department, which is led by Attorney General Merrick Garland, said in a court filing that the government “acknowledges that its briefs could have been clearer, and it deeply regrets the confusion that caused. But the government’s counsel and declarants did not intend to mislead the Court.”
The judge said earlier this month that Barr’s Justice Department had obscured “the true purpose of the memorandum” when it withheld the document.
Jackson, who has shown herself to be a partisan liberal in many of her anti-Trump decisions, said that Barr’s “characterization of what he’d hardly had time to skim, much less, study closely, prompted an immediate reaction, as politicians and pundits took to their microphones and Twitter feeds to decry what they feared was an attempt to hide the ball.”
Democrats believe that something is hidden in the memorandum and they have called for transparency.
“DOJ’s actions in this case, and in another recent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) case seeking information about President Trump’s activities, have raised doubts about DOJ’s candor when characterizing potential evidence of President Trump’s misconduct to courts. To be clear, these misrepresentations preceded your confirmation as Attorney General, but the Department you now lead bears responsibility for redressing them,” a group of Democrat Senators said to Garland in a letter on May 3. “In that light, and in order to help rebuild the nation’s trust in DOJ’s independence after four years of turmoil, we urge DOJ not to appeal D.C. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson’s May 3 decision to order the release of this OLC memo.”
Other prominent Democrats were also concerned about the possible decision to appeal the court’s verdict before the decision was made.
Harry Litman, the Los Angeles Times legal affairs columnist, said ina column that Garland is “a thoroughgoing institutionalist, is likely to tread cautiously “on the matter.”
“Much of what the Justice Department does under his leadership is apt to disappoint liberals hoping for a sea change,” he said.
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow said that the Justice Department was working to keep the memo a secret after Jackson’s decision.
“Either the Trump prosecution memo comes out, or the Biden Justice Department tells the judge they’re going to appeal to another court to try and keep it secret,” she said.
University of Alabama School of Law professor and MSNBC legal analyst Joyce Alene said that the notice of appeal does not show the department’s reasoning for it.
“DOJ is appealing a judge’s order that required it to release a memo that appears to shed light on Bill Barr’s handling of the release of the Mueller Report. You may recall he was not exactly candid,” she said.
“This is only a notice of appeal, not a brief that conveys DOJ’s reasoning. The appeal may be limited to certain redactions in the memo that DOJ believes are legitimately privileged or it could be something else. We won’t know the basis for the appeal until briefs are filed,” she said in a tweet.
But, she said, the department was going to release the part that infuriated Judge Jackson the most but “make a limited argument about section 2.”
