Supreme Court to Hear Case on Release of Full Mueller Report

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court announced on Thursday that it would decide whether Congress may see currently redacted parts of the report prepared by Special Counsel Robert Mueller during his investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

As is their custom, the justices did not explain their rationale for taking up the case, and it almost certainly will not hear the case prior to the presidential election in November.

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.

In May, the court blocked release of the full report, which the House Judiciary Committee has been seeking since the impeachment inquiry, while the Justice Department considered whether to appeal a lower court ruling requiring the administration to hand over the materials.

It gave the Justice Department until June 1 to act, warning that if an appeal wasn’t filed by that time, the stay could be lifted.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi responded at the time by saying, “The House’s long-standing right to obtain grand jury information pursuant to the House’s impeachment power has now been upheld by the lower courts twice. These rulings are supported by decades of precedent and should be permitted to proceed.

“The Justice Department’s continued delay is part of a pattern of the administration hiding the truth from the public. The American people deserve the truth,” she said.

The committee is specifically seeking grand jury materials that were blacked out when the report was provided to Congress last year.

It is expected the court will hear the case sometime in late November or early December, and render its decision in 2021.

The case is No.19-1328, Dept. of Justice v. House Comm. On Judiciary.