House Asks High Court to Postpone Mueller Document Argument
House Asks Supreme Court to Postpone Mueller Document Argument
(Bloomberg) -- House Democrats asked the U.S. Supreme Court to postpone a scheduled Dec. 2 argument on their bid for access to confidential materials from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
In a court filing Tuesday, the House Judiciary Committee pointed to Joe Biden’s election as president and the advent of a new Congress in January as reasons for the court to hold off hearing the case.
Biden’s election already meant the case was likely to fizzle. House Democrats have been battling President Donald Trump’s administration, which has refused to turn over redacted parts of Mueller’s 448-page report or the underlying grand jury transcripts and exhibits. The Justice Department potentially could agree to release the materials once Biden takes office.
In the new court filing, House General Counsel Douglas Letter also said that, after the new Congress convenes in January, lawmakers might reconsider whether to keep pressing their demands.
“The newly constituted committee will have to determine whether it wishes to continue pursuing the application for the grand-jury materials that gave rise to this case,” Letter said.
The Supreme Court temporarily blocked lawmakers from seeing the documents in May and then agreed to hear the Trump administration’s appeal in July. Those moves ensured Democrats wouldn’t get pre-election access to the materials.
Democrats have said the materials would help them determine whether Trump committed impeachable offenses by obstructing the FBI’s and Mueller’s investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Mueller found 10 instances of possible obstruction of justice but stopped short of determining whether Trump had engaged in obstruction.
Letter’s three-page filing said the Trump administration will file a response, suggesting the administration might urge the court to proceed with the Dec. 2 argument.
The case is Department of Justice v. House Committee on the Judiciary, 19-1328.
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