Former acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal on MSNBC (screengrab)
Special counsel Robert Mueller's final report will be made public, attorney Neal Katyal explained on Wednesday.
Katyal served as acting Solicitor General during the Obama administration. In a previous Department of Justice role, Katyal drafted the DOJ's rules governing special counsel investigations.
He explained how the regulations were written with "a safeguard to prevent a cover-up" that could stymie Trump's hope for a get-out-of-jail-free card.
"Bottom line: the President can try to hide the Mueller Report," Katyal concluded. "He will lose to the public’s right to know."
Read the full thread:
THREAD ON WHETHER MUELLER REPORT WILL BE PUBLIC, AND @washingtonpost STORY ABOUT TRUMP HIRING MANY NEW LAWYERS TO A… https://t.co/rLpBAPOwWR— Neal Katyal (@Neal Katyal) 1547090930.0
1.The special counsel rules, which I drafted at DOJ 20 years ago, contemplate 2 kinds of reports. One is a report f… https://t.co/0xEq9Dasgt— Neal Katyal (@Neal Katyal) 1547091018.0
2. That document is to be confidential. But there is a second, separate reporting requirement, which forces the AG… https://t.co/yZraxcVhnI— Neal Katyal (@Neal Katyal) 1547091038.0
3. ... a description and explanation of instances (if any) in which the AG concluded that a proposed action by a Sp… https://t.co/k863Q68Gzi— Neal Katyal (@Neal Katyal) 1547091072.0
4.That report must explain why the investigation has concluded, and any instance in which the AG overruled the Spec… https://t.co/eWmzs5PYcC— Neal Katyal (@Neal Katyal) 1547091096.0
5.Notably, we wrote the circumstances for an AG to overrule a Special Counsel very tightly—it has to violate “estab… https://t.co/SCZoaTmmZU— Neal Katyal (@Neal Katyal) 1547091110.0
6. So, to take one hypothetical example, generic DOJ opinions about whether a sitting President could be indicted d… https://t.co/97JgWldZl3— Neal Katyal (@Neal Katyal) 1547091150.0
7.There is no DOJ established practice that says if a Presidential candidate cheats enough and wins the Presidency,… https://t.co/LrPZJH17oK— Neal Katyal (@Neal Katyal) 1547091164.0
8.There is one other important aspect to the regulations. If a Special Counsel is worried that the AG may cover som… https://t.co/tsbky2JaRR— Neal Katyal (@Neal Katyal) 1547091179.0
9.Because they require a mandatory report to Congress about any instance of the AG overruling a Special Counsel, th… https://t.co/NCt0Av9lWL— Neal Katyal (@Neal Katyal) 1547091219.0
10. It is a safeguard to prevent a cover-up, it creates a mandatory report to a separate and coequal branch of govt… https://t.co/eoRushCG3J— Neal Katyal (@Neal Katyal) 1547091280.0
11. Now the President can try to claim executive privilege. Nixon tried that, it didn’t turn out so well. He got cr… https://t.co/Um4PJBIMEu— Neal Katyal (@Neal Katyal) 1547091355.0
12.And here, there is another problem: Trump’s legal team has been saying they don’t think a sitting President can be indicted.— Neal Katyal (@Neal Katyal) 1547091370.0
13. Leaving aside the point above in (6) and (7), the only way that claim makes any sense is if the President must… https://t.co/LJx2SMNKwm— Neal Katyal (@Neal Katyal) 1547091404.0
14. So if the President asserts the view he can’t be indicted, he has to allow the turnover of all investigative ma… https://t.co/RZTGN54jcL— Neal Katyal (@Neal Katyal) 1547091419.0
15.This point is fleshed out in my NYT op-ed below. The key point is that even if you think Trump won't be indicted… https://t.co/eFzlKHXy8w— Neal Katyal (@Neal Katyal) 1547091540.0
16. Bottom line: the President can try to hide the Mueller Report. He will lose to the public’s right to know.— Neal Katyal (@Neal Katyal) 1547091561.0
