Supreme Court denies Congress access to secret Mueller investigation material through election season
The Supreme Court is denying Congress access to secret grand jury testimony from special counsel Robert Mueller맥스카지노s Russia investigation through the November election.
The justices agreed on Thursday to hear the Trump administration맥스카지노s appeal of a lower court order for the material to be turned over to the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives. The high court맥스카지노s action will keep the documents out of congressional hands at least until the case is resolved, which is not likely to happen before 2021.
Arguments themselves might not even take place before Americans decide whether to give President Donald Trump a second term.
The delay is a victory for Trump, who also is mounting a Supreme Court fight against congressional efforts to obtain his banking and other financial records. Those cases are expected to be decided in the coming days or weeks.
The House wants previously undisclosed details from the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
The federal appeals court in Washington ruled in March that the documents should be turned over because the House Judiciary Committee맥스카지노s need for the material in its investigation of Trump outweighed the Justice Department맥스카지노s interests in keeping the testimony secret.
Mueller맥스카지노s 448-page report, issued in April 2019, 맥스카지노stopped short맥스카지노 of reaching conclusions about Trump맥스카지노s conduct, including whether he obstructed justice, to avoid stepping on the House맥스카지노s impeachment power, the appeals court said.
The committee was able to persuasively argue that it needed access to the underlying grand jury material to make its own determinations about the president맥스카지노s actions, the court said.
The materials initially were sought last summer, but by the time the appeals court ruled in March, Trump had been impeached by the House and acquitted by the Senate.
The Justice Department said in its Supreme Court filings that the court맥스카지노s action was needed in part because the House hasn맥스카지노t given any indication it 맥스카지노urgently needs these materials for any ongoing impeachment investigation.맥스카지노
The House had opposed the delay on the grounds that its investigation of Trump was continuing and that time is of the essence because of the approaching election. The current session of the House will end Jan. 3, and lawmakers elected in November will take their seats.
Democrats have suggested that the grand jury materials could reveal new misconduct that could potentially form the basis of new articles of impeachment, but such a course would have been unlikely so close to the 2020 election even if the court had allowed the material to be turned over immediately.
The House impeached Trump for his efforts to get Ukraine to dig up dirt on Biden, but the Republican-controlled Senate acquitted the president in February.
It is also unclear how many new, or incendiary, revelations might be contained in the grand jury transcripts. Mueller맥스카지노s report, though redacted in parts, revealed more than a year ago significant information about the president맥스카지노s efforts to choke off the investigation and raised substantial questions about whether he had committed obstruction of justice.
Besides, many of the witnesses closest to Trump appeared voluntarily before Mueller맥스카지노s team of prosecutors, and the Justice Department in recent months has released written 맥스카지노 albeit redacted 맥스카지노 summaries of those interviews. That means the public already has insight into the accounts of key Trump associates including son-in-law Jared Kushner and advisers like Steve Bannon and Hope Hicks.