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Thursday, August 1, 2019

Early Morning Update: Lindsey Graham On Hannity Re Prosecution


This is mostly a discussion re the reported decision not to prosecute James Comey for taking his Trump memos home--a decision that has upset many.

It's a good discussion from a prosecutorial standpoint--Graham does have experience in that regard. Graham's take is to defend Barr's decision--if non-prosecution on the classified docs is the decision--because any good prosecutor knows the risks of overcharging in a big case. Neither Comey nor any other of the main subjects will plead to an overcharged case. Therefore, Barr needs to lead with truly strong, consequential charges, lest the main case is "tainted" by an aspect that is weaker--a jury could conclude from overcharging that they should be skeptical of the entire case. This is a decision that every prosecutor makes every day.

Excerpt:

"The worst thing you can do is over-charge somebody," he said. "It'll begin to fall apart, then it taints the thing that really is strong. 
"There's two ways to do this: Throw everything, the kitchen sink, at the accused and hope he pleads to something -- or, make sure that when you charge them it will not be undermined because you over-charged.

"This is what happened with Mueller," Graham added. 
In the case of the former special counsel's investigation, Graham claimed Mueller "tried to scare people into ratting on Trump." 
"It didn't work," he said. "They were over-charged and I hope they will have their case revisited." 
Graham said he trusts Attorney General William Barr's prosecutorial discretion in whatever charges may come out of the inspector general's probe into the origins of the Russia investigation. 
"You don't want to undermine a big case by throwing stuff out that is iffy," he said.

This makes good sense, and Hannity concludes by saying that if this is what Barr is doing, then he'd hate to be Comey if Barr does charge him down the road. Because it will mean that it will be a very strong case.

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