Grand jury decision may affect publication of Mueller report details

In the case of the investigation conducted by the special advocate Robert Mueller and the grand jury records that relate to it, Attorney General William Barr said that he was working with him. outgoing special solicitor to remove confidential grand jury information from Mueller's nearly 400-page final report, which will be released this month. But transparency organizations and chamber democrats have already indicated that they could challenge Barr by taking legal action and taking political stances.

Rules of secrecy

The Court of Appeals of the DC Circuit Friday split 2-1 in its decision on the secrecy of the grand jury and finally sided with the Department of Justice in a case brought by researcher Stuart McKeever looking for documents dating from 60 years ago.

The power to share the archives of a grand jury rests largely on the executive branch – especially the prosecutors, since the proceedings before a grand jury are conducted at arm's length, said the court of appeal , citing previous decisions in his reasoning.

Federal rules that keep the work of a grand jury secret – including transcripts, related cases and court classifications – are strict. Yet there are other exceptions.

Witnesses called before the grand jury, for example, can talk about their experiences.

And the judges give some hope to Mueller's apparent grand jury document quests, such as if the House of Representatives decided to use this information as part of its own investigation into President Donald Trump, his political associates or the Russians.

The Court of Appeal notes that in other cases, the grand jury secret has been raised to facilitate further investigations. Judges are still able to disclose the grand jury records "in the course of a court proceeding" in certain circumstances, for example when the Judiciary Committee of the House has assessed the indictment of President Richard Nixon.

"We are pleased that the court has reaffirmed the long standing position of the Ministry of Justice and the Supreme Court's precedent that the proper functioning of the grand jury depends on the confidentiality of the proceedings," the spokesman said. Department of Justice, Kelly Laco, as a result of the decision. Friday. "The Ministry of Justice will continue to defend the established tradition of protecting the information of the grand jury."

Spokespeople at McKeever's attorney's office did not respond to inquiries on Friday about whether he would continue to appeal for grand jury documents.

However, a public rights organization called Protect Democracy highlighted an exception in Friday's notice – if the House sought permission from a court to gather material on a grand jury.

"Friday's announcement" says nothing about the Congress and its access to Mueller's full report, "said Deana El-Mallawany, legal counsel for Protect Democracy, in a statement Friday. "Before and after this decision, the judicial branch of the Chamber has the clear right to request information from Mueller's grand jury in the context of an express exception to the grand jury's secrecy."

The 1957 affair

In the case decided on Friday, McKeever, a historian and writer, was seeking for his research the publication of much of the grand jury work relating to the 1957 indictment of 1937. a former FBI agent and CIA lawyer suspected of being behind the disappearance of a 1950s dissident in the Dominican Republic. McKeever wanted to use this material in the search for a book.

The agent, John Joseph Frank, was finally charged for not being registered as a foreign agent.

McKeever lost his claim in the Washington District Court.

The appeal judges said on Friday that the disclosure of the grand jury records could have a "chilling effect" on the statements made by the witnesses during the secret procedure used to flesh out criminal cases.

"If a witness in the proceedings before the grand jury of Frank had known that the public could learn more about his testimony – and that his words could be immortalized in a book – then his willingness to testify" fully and frankly " could have been: affected, "said Circuit Judge Douglas Ginsburg in the notice Friday.

Ginsburg, who is a judge of appeal since the Reagan administration, drafted this opinion, which represented the three-judge panel, which also included Greg Katsas, a former Trump White House lawyer and appointed to the bench. by Trump.

Judge Sri Srinivasan, who was appointed to court by President Barack Obama, opposed the decision, saying that federal district judges could authorize the publication of grand jury documents in certain circumstances.

Mueller grand jury effect

The decision Friday effectively reverses the remarks of a recent opinion regarding the Starr's grand jury investigation of President Bill Clinton. This opinion, from Chief Justice Beryl Howell of the DC District Court, came in response to a request by CNN to release documents that Starr had largely released to Congress, but which had remained under seal in the 39, judiciary for 20 years. Howell's opinion in this case was used last week by a First Amendment group demanding disclosure of details pertaining to the work of Mueller's grand jury.

The work of this grand jury is continuing and federal prosecutors are meeting it again Friday for a little over an hour, apparently for the first time since Trump 's political adviser' s indictment. Roger Stone, January 24.

There is nothing to indicate that the prosecutors of the special council office, which is in dissolution, still use this grand jury for criminal investigations, although Mueller's team has referred the criminal cases to others. parquet floors, including DC.