or a bag to clean up the shit
Justice May Provide Redacted Portions of Rosenstein Mueller “Scope” Memo
Judicial Watch is number one when it comes to providing independent oversight on what your government is up to – including the out-of-control Mueller investigation.
The Justice Department has disclosed that it may soon provide us with previously withheld material from the heavily redacted August 2 memorandum in which Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein granted broad authority to Special Counsel Mueller three months after Mueller’s appointment.
The initial, highly controversial appointment memo, controversially, was written in May 2017. The Justice Department’s notice to us came almost immediately after the explosive District Court hearing in which Judge T.S. Ellis III demanded the full memorandum be made available to the court in two weeks, by May 18.
In a May 4 response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit we filed, the Justice Department revealed that it is now “processing the August 2 memo to determine if it can release additional portions that have not already been filed publicly.” The agency had previously refused to acknowledge that any such “scope” documents exist.
We filed our FOIA lawsuit against the Justice Department on October 5, 2017, after the agency failed to respond to a July 10, 2017, request (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:17-cv-02079)). Judicial Watch is seeking:
A copy of the budget prepared and submitted by Robert S. Mueller III or his staff in his capacity as appointed “Special Counsel to oversee the previously-confirmed FBI investigation of Russian government efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election and related matters.” Temporal scope of this request is from 17 May 2017 to 10 July 2017.
A copy of all guidance memoranda and communications by which the Justice Management Division will review the Special Counsel’s Office’s “Statement of Expenditures” prior to or for the purpose of making each public. Temporal scope of this request is from 1 June 2017 to present.
A copy of each document scoping, regulating, or governing the Special Counsel’s Office appointed under the leadership of Mueller III. Temporal scope of this request is from 17 May 2017 to present.
A few hours after Judge Ellis’s explosive hearing (here’s ), the Justice Department officially admitted to us that a scope memo existed:
As you are no doubt aware, in conjunction with its opposition to Paul Manafort’s motion to dismiss his criminal indictment, the United States filed on that criminal docket a redacted version of an August 2, 2017, Memorandum regarding ‘The scope of Investigation and Definition of Authority’ conferred on the Special Counsel….
In light of the Special Counsel’s public acknowledgement of the August 2 memo, the government has been assessing whether the acknowledgment alters its prior response to Request No. 3 [for documents describing the scope of Mueller’s authority] of the FOIA request at issue in this suit, and processing the August 2 memorandum to determine if it can release additional portions that have not already been filed publicly, but needs some additional time to complete these tasks.
We are pleased, especially after Judge Ellis’s hearing, that our lawsuit is causing the Justice Department to rethink its cover-up of the “scope memo” for Mueller. We have never before seen this level of secrecy and cover-up surrounding the operation of a special or independent counsel.
In the August 2 memorandum we obtained, Rosenstein reiterated the broad authority he gave Mueller in his May order authorizing the special counsel:
[T]o conduct “the investigation confirmed my then-FBI Director James B. Comey in testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on March 20, 2017, including: (1) any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump; and (2) any matters that arose or may arise directly from that investigation….”
The May 17, 2017 order was worded categorically in order to permit its public release without confirming specific investigations involving specific individuals. This memorandum provides a more specific description of your authority. The following allegations were within the scope of the Investigation at the time of your appointment and are within the scope of the Order…
The Justice Department then redacted all of the “following allegations.”
The August Rosenstein memorandum also included a section providing Mueller a “more specific description of your authority,” authorizing the special counsel to expand his prosecution of former Trump advisor Paul Manafort by investigating:
More:
https://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/weekly-updates/weekly-update-jw-exposes-comey-mueller-coordination/