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The Supreme Court will keep the grand jury testimony gathered by former special counsel Robert Mueller from the hands of House Democrats secret until after the November presidential election.
On Thursday, the high court agreed to hear an appeal from the Trump administration of a lower court decision ordering that testimony be released to the House of Representatives, which is controlled by Democrats. Now that the matter is addressed to the highest court in the country, the process to decide the fate of the testimony will last until next year.
Despite the fact that Mueller’s final report stated that his team found no evidence of a coordinated collusion effort between Trump 2016 campaign officials and the Russians, he did not exonerate the president on the issue of whether he obstructed justice by trying to interfere or delay the investigation. House and Senate Democrats had hoped Mueller would find evidence of collusion and make it clear that the President-in-Office of the United States obstructed a federal investigation. But he did nothing.
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Mueller’s findings were not even a major part of the House Democrats impeachment case against Trump, which some legal experts have said was a mistake despite Republican sources doubting that it has caused enough Republicans of the Senate turn their back on Trump by voting for his removal
As for Thursday’s high court decision: it amounts to a big court victory for the president.
This is because the arguments may not occur before the nine Supreme Court justices before Election Day (November 3). That could prevent his attorneys from arguing in court, which would be played over and over on cable news shows, to keep the grand jury’s potentially damning testimony of his actions as a sealed and out-of-sight commander-in-chief for Americans who decide whether to give him a second term or elect former Vice President Joe Biden, the alleged Democratic candidate.
What’s more, the Supreme Court’s decision to take the case again shows its long-standing deference to the Office of the President. Trump also argues in higher court that Congress has no right to his bank and financial records, cases that could be decided this month.
The announcement came after the president had just finished brief comments in the White House briefing room on the numbers of latent jobs, showing a declining unemployment rate as states reopened their economies amid the growing coronavirus.
House of Representatives Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler said Democrats should now focus on defeating the president in November.
“I am disappointed by the Court’s decision to further extend this case, but I am confident that we will prevail. In every administration before this one, [the Department of Justice] has cooperated with requests from the Judiciary Committee for grand jury materials related to investigations of indictable crimes. Attorney General Barr broke with that practice, and the Justice Department’s recently invented arguments against disclosure have failed at all levels, “the New York Democrat said in a statement.
“Unfortunately, President Trump and Attorney General Barr continue to try to time out any liability. Although I am confident that their legal arguments will fail,” he added, “it is now even more important to the American people.” hold the president accountable at the polls in November. “
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