Trump Guilty Of Felony If He Wasn't President, According To 450 Federal Prosecutors

If he weren’t a sitting president, Donald Trump will have been found guilty of obstruction of justice based on evidence laid out in special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe, said a bipartisan letter signed by more than 450 former federal prosecutors and posted online Monday.

"Each of us believes that the conduct of President Trump described in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report would, in the case of any other person not covered by the Office of Legal Counsel policy against indicting a sitting President, result in multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice," said the lawyers in their letter posted on Medium.

The letter was signed by officials from various backgrounds, and included former lawyers and other top officials from the Democratic and Republican parties. Signatories to the letter included officials whose government service included every administration since President Dwight Eisenhower.

The redacted Mueller report released by the Department of Justice (DoJ) two weeks ago showed Mueller investigating if Trump committed obstruction. It laid out specific and unsuccessful attempts by Trump to obstruct Mueller himself. Despite the evidence he laid out, Mueller concluded he couldn’t affirm "no criminal conduct occurred.”

Attorney general William Barr said after the conclusion of Mueller's investigation that both he and former deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein determined Mueller's evidence was "not sufficient" to support prosecuting Trump for obstruction.

In the letter, former federal prosecutors said the Mueller report "describes multiple efforts by the president to curtail the scope of the Special Counsel’s investigation." They pointed to when Trump pressured then-attorney general Jeff Sessions to reverse his decision to recuse himself from overseeing Mueller's investigation.

The letter also pointed out Trump directed his former chief of staff Reince Priebus to fire Sessions, which Priebus refused.

"In our system, every accused person is presumed innocent and it is always the government’s burden to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt," wrote the former prosecutors. "But, to look at these facts and say that a prosecutor could not probably sustain a conviction for obstruction of justice -- the standard set out in Principles of Federal Prosecution -- runs counter to logic and our experience."

"We believe strongly that, but for the OLC (Office of Legal Counsel) memo, the overwhelming weight of professional judgment would come down in favor of prosecution for the conduct outlined in the Mueller Report," concludes the letter.

In his report, Mueller revealed 10 situations in which he investigated Trump's actions and motivations. These included the firing of former FBI Director James Comey and Trump's pressure on then-White House counsel Don McGahn to remove Mueller from his job.

Mueller found Trump had taken obstructive acts that could have hurt ongoing investigations. He also found Trump intended to disrupt the investigators at times because of his own personal motivations, like silencing questions about his 2016 presidential election victory.

Instead of deciding whether to prosecute Trump, Mueller said he wouldn’t exonerate Trump and pointed to the DoJ guidance a President can’t be indicted while in office as a reason for not reaching a conclusion.