The Supreme Court order ends Democratic congressional attempts to determine whether Trump lied in Mueller’s investigation

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The House can’t now get the grand jury’s records – ending Democrats ’pursuit of what Mueller investigation witnesses said confidently swore about their engagement with Trump and others during the 2016 campaign.

Since 2019, the Judiciary Committee has sought access to records from the grand jury investigative hearing, cited in Mueller’s report on Russia’s interference in the 2016 elections. The House has repeatedly said it wants the records so it could consider whether to pardon Trump for attempting to block the investigation into Russia, which Mueller will also document.

But over the past two years, the battle has raged through the court system, with the Department of Justice under Trump unsuccessfully arguing to block the release of grand jury documents. The Supreme Court initially agreed to hear the case, but then delayed it following Trump’s loss of the presidency in November.

On Friday, the high court vacated earlier rulings. The Department of Justice under President Joe Biden wants this result, saying the case has been moot. The House did not oppose the transfer of the department.

But a top lawyer for the House said in June that the case is over because Trump is no longer President.

“The Trump Administration has succeeded in the passage of time and thus weakened the ability of the House of Representatives to have access to all relevant facts because it is considered impeachment,” House General Counsel Douglas Letter wrote in a filing in Supreme Court. In the future, “the Committee fully trusts that the Department of Justice will return to its former long -standing position and support disclosure in a timely manner. Any failure to do so will seriously fix the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution and be destroyed. the public’s trust in our system of government. “

Unanswered questions from Mueller

The resolution of the case after Trump’s departure highlighted how the Justice Department during Trump’s presidency successfully blocked his political opponents in Congress from obtaining key investigation documents.

Mueller attempted to see if Trump lied to him in written answers to a range of questions, including about whether Trump knew of his campaign interest in WikiLeaks and of the site’s planned release in 2016.

Trump said in his written responses that he did not recall any conversations about WikiLeaks with his political confidant Roger Stone.

However, Stone lied to Congress about trying to reach WikiLeaks on behalf of the 2016 Trump campaign, and Mueller asked numerous witnesses, including during the grand trial, about what Trump knew and when. Dozens of witnesses testified before Mueller’s grand jury, CNN reported, including former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and at least two people who attended an infamous meeting. of the Trump Tower in the summer of 2016. Grand jury records are largely kept, except for occasional use. in judicial proceedings.

The House Judiciary Committee in 2019, under Democratic control, filed a lawsuit for access to transcripts of grand jury test interviews cited in Mueller’s final report, believing they could help preserve life. investigative threads intercept Trump even as Mueller shut down his prosecutors. ‘office. Maneller does not charge Trump with any crimes, largely because of the Justice Department’s policy that a sitting president cannot be prosecuted.

Separation of powers

The conclusion of the case in the Supreme Court also leaves unresolved a major separation of powers that fight over the secrecy of grand jury information.

The House also said in 2020 that it still wants to pursue the records because it is considering a second investigation into Trump’s impeachment-the kind of trial that lower courts believe is quasi-judicial and worthy of seeing secret record of grand jury investigation.

Although Trump was impeachable by the House twice during his presidency, for the second time for inciting the uprising on Jan. 6, Congress has never ended a full investigation into Mueller’s findings. that Trump has taken steps to close Russia’s probe. Instead, after Mueller testified in Congress that his investigation had not yet pardoned the President, Democrats shifted their focus to Trump’s attempts to push Ukraine to investigate his 2020 opponent, Biden.

A court -level judge in 2019 acknowledged that Mueller’s grand jury notes could be relevant to an impeachment investigation in Congress because the Chamber could continue investigating Mueller’s obstruction. An appeals court also joined the Chamber in March 2020, reminding the Justice department that the grand jury’s record is out of control.

When Trump left the presidency this year, the questioning of the Mueller-hurdle impeachment effectively ended.

In a notable development on Friday, the Justice Department released several letters between Mueller’s investigators and Trump’s lawyers as Mueller pushed for more answers from the former President and demanded a sitting interview. However Trump’s team stopped them. What the written exchange has not yet seen is further highlighting of how Mueller had questions for Trump that have yet to be answered.

CNN’s Jeremy Herb and Ariane de Vogue contributed to this report.

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