RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/04/mueller-probe-fbi-investigation-questions/

The Mueller probe was a national trauma.

Attorney General William Barr dared to use the “s-word.”

He said in congressional testimony that the Trump campaign had been spied on by the U.S. government. Pressed by incredulous Senate Democrats, he clarified: “I think spying did occur. The question is whether it was adequately predicated.”

“Spying” has a negative connotation, so perhaps “surveilling” would be the better way to put it. But a key question is indeed whether there was “improper surveillance” of the campaign, as Barr stated at another point in the hearing.

Barr is committed to reviewing the conduct of the Russia investigation, which is getting denounced as an outrage by his critics. But why shouldn’t the attorney general seek to understand his department’s role in the high-stakes investigative melodrama of the past two years?

The Mueller probe was a national trauma. Its boosters didn’t experience it as such, of course. They enjoyed it and played it up and hoped for the very worst. But it cast a shadow over the White House, occupied an inordinate share of the nation’s political attention, and saddled innocent people with large legal bills.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/statute-of-limitations-will-be-hotly-disputed-in-assange-case/

The indictment that the Justice Department filed against Julian Assange in the Eastern District of Virginia charges him with a conspiracy to commit computer fraud. The conspiracy statute is Section 371 of the penal code, and the computer fraud offenses that were the objectives of the conspiracy are parts of Section 1030.

According to the indictment, Assange and Manning (then known as Bradley, now as Chelsea) conspired in 2010. Manning was prosecuted by the armed forces. The Justice Department’s indictment against Assange was not returned until 2018 — eight years later.

The five-year statute of limitations that applies to most federal crimes is prescribed for both conspiracy and computer fraud.

So how is the Justice Department able to prosecute Assange on an indictment filed 3 years after the prescribed limitations period.

It appears that the Justice Department is relying on an exception, in Section 2332b of the penal code, that extends the statute of limitations to eight years for “acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries.”

Now, conspiracy to commit computer fraud is a very serious offense, and Assange’s is at the top of the seriousness range because it involved publication of defense secrets that endangered lives, including the lives of our troops. And there’s no doubt that the conspiracy transcended national boundaries — Assange was outside the U.S. when he collaborated with Manning. But is it really an act of terrorism?

It may be . . . at least as the operative term — federal crime of terrorism — is defined by Section 2332b.

Under subsection (g)(5) of that statute, an offense is considered a “federal crime of terrorism” if it satisfies two elements: (1) it “is calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate against government conduct”; and (2) it is a violation of one of a long list of offenses, which includes “section . . . 1030(a)(1) (relating to protection of computers)[.]”

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/andrew-mccarthy-barr-is-right-to-review-why-trump-russia-investigation-began

In his testimony Wednesday before a Senate Appropriations Committee subcommittee, Attorney General William Barr made statements that were so clearly correct, they should be no more controversial than asserting that the sky is blue. The fact that they are causing consternation is what should alarm people.

Barr told senators that “I think spying did occur” in the Trump-Russia investigation conducted by (among others) the Justice Department and the FBI during the 2016 presidential campaign.

“The question,” Barr elaborated, “is whether it was adequately predicated.” Because “spying on a political campaign is a big deal,” he explained that he would undertake an internal review, focusing on what the original rationale was for the spying.

We should long ago have known what the rationale was. You know, as surely as you are reading this, that if an incumbent Republican administration had green-lighted a Justice Department and FBI investigation of the Democratic Party’s presidential campaign, we would already be fully informed about what triggered the investigation.

Democrats would have been unified in demanding it, the media would have echoed those demands in an endless loop and – if there had been an abuse of power – all the pertinent heads would by now have rolled.