Appeals court upholds House Democrats' access to redacted Mueller Report

A federal appeals court Tuesday upheld a ruling that grants House Democrats permission to access grand jury secrets from special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into Russia meddling in the 2016 elections.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, should it stand, will grant Congress access to redacted information in the so-called “Mueller Report.”  

The majority opinion of the court dictates that the House should not be micromanaged by the judiciary system in its effort to obtain information in the context of an impeachment investigation.

Democrats will consider the court decision a significant victory, after having spent the better part of the past year fighting the Trump administration for access to the information. However, it comes over a month after the end of President Trump’s impeachment trial.

“The courts cannot tell the House how to conduct its impeachment investigation or what Iines of inquiry to pursue, or how to prosecute its case before the Senate,” wrote Judge Judith Rogers, joined by Judge Thomas Griffith.

Judge Neomi Rao, a Trump appointee, was the lone dissenter in the appeals court decision. She argued that the president’s impeachment trial concluded last month with a Senate acquittal, making the House’s need to access the classified elements of the Mueller report unclear.

The Senate trial was based on the House’s articles of impeachment, which  focused on whether Trump exceeded his Executive Branch authority in becoming involved in the Ukraine politics. 

The articles twice addressed the Mueller investigation, which was concluded without a recommendation to bring charges against the president. 

“A reasonable observer might wonder why we are deciding this case at this time,” Rao wrote. “After all, the committee sought these materials preliminary to an impeachment proceeding and the Senate impeach trial has concluded … Why is this controversy not moot? The majority simply turns a blind eye to these very public events.” 

An appeal on the ruling from the Justice Department is considered likely.

How the Democrats plan to use the documents is unclear, though they’ve left open the door to the possibility of passing additional articles of impeachment.