Appeals court rules DOJ must disclose secret Mueller grand jury details to House Democrats

An appeals court upheld a lower court ruling on Tuesday, ordering the Justice Department to give the Democrat-led House Judiciary Committee access to secretive redacted grand jury materials contained within former special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled in a 2-1 vote to uphold U.S. District Court Chief Judge Beryl Howell’s October 2019 ruling that House investigators should be given access to the grand jury material redacted within and underlying Mueller’s report.

The 26-page appeals court opinion said, “It is the district court, not the Executive or the Department of Justice, that controls access to the grand jury materials at issue here.”

The Justice Department objected to disclosure because of “general purposes and policies of grand jury secrecy," but the court said the arguments “do not outweigh the Committee’s compelling need for disclosure.”