Barr’s press conference ‘makes Trump look blatantly guilty’: Obama administration lawyer

Former acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal deduced that President Donald Trump looks guilty during a Wednesday appearance on MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show."

Katyal wrote the Justice Department regulations governing special counsel investigations.

"Let me first ask you about this report from the report from The Times that Justice Department officials have been briefing the White House on Mueller's findings ahead of releasing it to anybody else," Maddow said. "Is that what the special counsel regulations spell out they should be doing?"

"I think what I learned in this kind of law school for this kind of behavior is 'super extra stinky.' There are very careful rules that have been around for generations for governing the White House, its contacts with the Justice Department in general, and that's because our country's founders understood the prosecution power is massive, both because the president's enemies can be indicted and the president's friends, their wrongs can be covered up," Katyal replied.

"Even in just an ordinary case, there is a very, very careful set of rules and it's extremely rare to give the president any knowledge whatsoever of criminal cases -- and this is that problem on steroids," he continued.

"The president is the subject of the investigation and honestly, I've never heard of such a thing. It's a complete breach of precedent, it's a breach of common sense and indeed, it makes Trump look blatantly guilty," Katyal concluded.

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