{"id":2444743,"date":"2019-05-30T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-05-30T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=307156"},"modified":"2019-05-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-05-30T06:00:00","slug":"mueller-report-discussion-a-timely-legal-aid-fundraiser","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/mueller-report-discussion-a-timely-legal-aid-fundraiser\/","title":{"rendered":"Mueller Report discussion a timely legal aid fundraiser"},"content":{"rendered":"
Special counsel Robert Mueller speaks at the Department of Justice Wednesday, May 29, 2019, in Washington, about the Russia investigation. (AP Photo\/Carolyn Kaster)<\/strong>
AP | AP<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The timing of Friday\u2019s fundraiser for a nonprofit that offers free civil legal advice to low-income residents of the Roaring Fork Valley couldn\u2019t be better.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Mueller Report and Impeachment Perspectives,\u201d a discussion between Colorado\u2019s attorney general and a former U.S. solicitor general who helped draft the special counsel regulations comes on the heels of Robert Mueller\u2019s first public comments Wednesday on the investigation he headed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe timing is crazy,\u201d said Helen Obermeyer, a board member at Alpine Legal Services. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot on the table right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser and Neal Katyal, who took over as U.S. solicitor general when President Barack Obama appointed Elena Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court, will head what is billed as a bipartisan discussion about the Mueller Report as well as other topics affecting Colorado and the nation, according to statements and Obermeyer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want an open discussion,\u201d Obermeyer said. \u201cWe don\u2019t want a bunch of Democrats asking for impeachment.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a 10-minute news conference Wednesday, Mueller made his first public remarks and characterizations of his two-year investigation of Russia\u2019s interference in the 2016 presidential election.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so,\u201d Mueller said from the U.S. Justice Department in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n

Mueller said he couldn\u2019t charge a sitting president with a crime per Justice Department policy, though he noted that the Constitution authorizes Congress to formally accuse a president of wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

Katyal \u2014 who has praised both Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh as worthy Supreme Court justices \u2014 seized on Mueller\u2019s statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cMake no mistake: this is ultimately about violation of the most core duty a President has, to take care to faithfully execute laws,\u201d he wrote Wednesday on Twitter. \u201cThis is about fitness for office and impeachment.<\/p>\n

\u201cCongress, your ball. Your duty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Katyal helped draft the regulations that \u201cserved as the blueprint for the recent Mueller investigation\u201d in 1999 at the request of Congress after President Bill Clinton\u2019s impeachment. He also argued successfully as solicitor general in front of the Supreme Court in favor of The Voting Rights Act and the Affordable Care Act, according to an Alpine Legal statement.<\/p>\n

Obermeyer said Katyal and his wife are \u201cbig hikers\u201d and have been coming to Aspen for the past couple years. She said he\u2019s also a strong supporter of legal aid and readily agreed to participate in the fundraiser discussion for Alpine Legal.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s adamant that everyone needs adequate legal representation,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Obermeyer said she\u2019s done some fundraising for Weiser \u2014 a Democrat and former dean of The University of Colorado Law School elected last year \u2014 and asked him to join the discussion. It turned out that he and Katyal knew each other, and he also agreed to come to Aspen, she said.<\/p>\n

The discussion may involve some of Weiser\u2019s observations about how national issues like abortion and the environment are affecting Colorado\u2019s judicial system, Obermeyer said.<\/p>\n

Alpine Legal Services, which has offices in Aspen, Glenwood Springs and Rifle, offers free civil legal advice to low-income residents.<\/p>\n

In the U.S., those charged with crimes can qualify for a free public defender lawyer. However, civil law \u2014 which governs everything from adoption to eviction to many situations that grow out of drugs, alcohol and domestic violence \u2014 comes with no such assistance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe get referrals of all shapes and sizes,\u201d said Jennifer Wherry, Alpine Legal\u2019s executive director. \u201cWe see people coming to us saying, \u2018I got fired because I was pregnant.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the biggest things they help with lately is grandparents who need to gain custody of grandchildren because their children are hooked on drugs, Obermeyer said.<\/p>\n

Alpine Legal helps about 2,000 Roaring Fork Valley residents every year, according to the statement. The group gets some of its $400,000 yearly budget from federal grants, while about 30% comes from private donations, Obermeyer said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of need,\u201d she said. \u201cWe cannot even begin to handle enough of the cases we get.\u201d<\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s discussion takes place from 5 to 7 p.m. at Paepcke Auditorium at the Aspen Institute. Tickets are $30 in advance at the Aspen Legal Services website, or $35 at the door. A ticket to the event and a post-discussion reception with Katyal costs $60.<\/p>\n

jauslander@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Special counsel Robert Mueller speaks at the Department of Justice Wednesday, May 29, 2019, in Washington, about the Russia investigation. (AP Photo\/Carolyn Kaster)AP | AP The timing of Friday\u2019s fundraiser for a nonprofit that offers free civil legal advice to low-income residents of the Roaring Fork Valley couldn\u2019t be better. \u201cThe Mueller Report and Impeachment […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2444743","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-18 09:07:44","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2444743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2444743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2444743\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2444743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2444743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2444743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}