Judges suggest court shouldn't solve dispute over Mueller's evidence [View all]

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Source: Politico

By DARREN SAMUELSOHN and JOSH GERSTEIN

Two Republican-appointed judges raised the possibility Monday that the courts should simply butt out of a dispute between Congress and the Justice Department over Robert Mueller’s underlying evidence.

Democratic lawmakers working on a possible impeachment of President Donald Trump have been seeking access to the secret grand jury information the special counsel’s team relied on during its 22-month probe into Russian election interference and whether the Trump campaign conspired with the Kremlin.

But DOJ, acting at the direction of Attorney General Bill Barr, has refused to hand over the grand-jury materials and underlying testimony. Grand jury information is typically kept private, but courts can authorize disclosures for a variety of reasons.
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As a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit wrestled with the issue Monday morning, Trump-appointed Judge Neomi Rao pointed out that in a 1993 case involving impeachment of a federal judge, the Supreme Court declined to wade into the mechanics of the impeachment process. She suggested that the courts have no business resolving the House’s request for the blacked-out portions of the Mueller report.

Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2019/11/18/court-mueller-russia-probe-071351