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Politico
By JOSH GERSTEIN and DARREN SAMUELSOHN
10/20/2019 04:04 PM EDT
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I’m beginning to think that we didn’t get the thorough investigation we thought we did.
The Justice Department confirmed Sunday that President Donald Trump’s son Donald Jr. and former White House counsel Don McGahn were never called before a grand jury that heard witnesses called by special counsel Robert Mueller.
The disclosure was set in motion by Chief Judge Beryl Howell of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., who ruled last week that Justice Department attorneys had deleted too much information from a court filing last month in an ongoing legal dispute over Attorney General William Barr’s refusal to share with House lawmakers grand jury-related information in Mueller’s final report.
Howell’s opinion, issued Thursday, suggested it was perplexing why Trump Jr. and McGahn were not subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury.
“The Special Counsel’s reasons remain unknown,” Howell wrote. “The reason is not that the individuals were insignificant to the investigation. To the contrary, both of the non-testifying individuals named in paragraph four figured in key events examined in the Mueller Report. Assessment of these choices by the Special Counsel is a matter for others.”
Trump Jr. was present at the now-famous June 2016 Trump Tower meeting in which Trump campaign officials met with Russians. Before that meeting, he also received an email offering “dirt” on Democratic president candidate Hillary Clinton.
“If it’s what you say, I love it,” Trump Jr. responded.
Mueller never brought Trump Jr. before a Grand Jury. WTF? squared. Trump Jr. was at the very center of the collusion allegations. He should have been required to either perjure himself by lying (for which he could pay a price later) or tell the truth so we could get to the bottom of what happened. How in hell did he just skate? And were only now just finding this out.
How can any Republican claim that Trump was exonerated on collusion allegations when the key witness did not testify?
The judge suggested that she was “perplexed” that Trump Jr. was not subpoenaed. Perplexed? That’s a massive understatement. It’s outrageous. I wonder how many missteps like this will need to be uncovered before there are calls for reopening the investigation.
In April, prior to release of the report, one of the president’s personal attorneys tamped down talk that Trump Jr. exercised his constitutional right to remain silent.
“I can tell you I have no knowledge that anybody took the Fifth,” Rudy Giuliani said at the time.
The Trump con machine rolls on. Giuliani may be unhinged in many ways, but his maneuver here was brilliant. By saying Trump Jr. didn’t take the fifth, he implied that the President’s son did testify and did answer questions without invoking the fifth. But the real reason Trump Jr. never took the fifth was that he never testified. Again, WTF?
And there’s this, which is actually much worse:
Howell noted in her order last week that Mueller’s final report disclosed that one person highly central to the investigation — President Trump — was not interviewed or called before the grand jury. The special counsel considered subpoenaing Trump because of dissatisfaction with written responses to prosecutors’ questions but elected not to do so, the judge observed.