Michael Zeldin, a CNN legal analyst, has served as a federal prosecutor in the Criminal Division of the US Department of Justice and was a special counsel to then-Assistant Attorney General Robert Mueller. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion at CNN.

(CNN) US Attorney General William Barr's March 24 letter to Congress summarizing the principal conclusions reached by special counsel Robert Mueller appears to have gone well beyond what the special counsel regulations authorize.

Michael Zeldin

On their own initiative, and with no apparent authority in the regulations, Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein determined that the evidence that the special counsel provided was not sufficient to establish that President Donald Trump committed an obstruction of justice offense.

In his four-page letter, Barr explained that the special counsel's decision to describe the facts without reaching any legal conclusion left it to the Attorney General to determine whether the President's conduct constituted a crime.

Barr's action, however, appears to be in direct contravention of the letter and spirit of the special counsel regulations -- that is, to have a special counsel who is not a political appointee and who is independent of the Department of Justice make the decision whether to charge a crime.

This independence is especially important, where, as here, the attorney general appears to have had a predetermined point of view on whether Trump's actions could amount to obstruction of justice. (Barr, as a private citizen, wrote a memorandum to Justice Department officials in June 2018, saying that Mueller's obstruction inquiry was " fatally misconceived .")

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