The inspector general's report clearing Justice Department officials of political bias despite their actions to derail President Donald Trump should also be used to inoculate the president against the obstruction probe, Andrew McCarthy wrote in a column for National Review.
"The Trump camp should also be embracing (the IG report). Why? Because if this is the Justice Department’s position, then Special Counsel Robert Mueller has no business investigating the president for obstruction," McCarthy writes.
McCarthy cites Michael Horowitz's report directly to bolster his case - discretion given to investigators is discretion that should be granted to the president.
"If there were plausible legitimate grounds to support a discretionary investigative call, the IG must give investigators the benefit of the doubt, assuming that they acted on those legitimate grounds. Given that this is surely the Justice Department’s position, it should pull the plug, forthwith, on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s obstruction investigation of President Trump," McCarthy writes.
"Under the rationale adopted by the IG with the implicit endorsement of the Justice Department, there is no basis for a prosecutor to investigate the president for obstruction," McCarthy writes.
"So the obstruction investigation should be closed," McCarthy writes.
"If the Justice Department accepts IG Horowitz’s premise that it must not second-guess the discretionary decision-making of FBI and Department officials when there are legitimate grounds to support their decisions, on what basis may a special counsel second-guess the president’s decision-making when … there are legitimate grounds to support the president’s decisions?" McCarthy concludes.
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