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But the judges allowed the publication of a partially redacted legal deposit revealing some additional facts about the dispute
The media attention for the case reached its climax last month when the DC Circuit Appeals Court imposed an unusual level of secrecy to hear the arguments of the court battle, prohibiting the public access to an entire floor.
The recently released record reveals that the secret went even further than was previously known: at one point, the company's lawyers were excluded while prosecutors made an unusual "ex parte" presentation to judges of the court of appeal. 19659008] Nothing in the public records indicates that the fight concerns Mueller.
A POLITICO reporter stationed in the clerk's office of the DC circuit the same day the file was filed in October heard a man apparently related to the company requesting a copy of the file by special board office shortly after the deadline for filing the file.
In addition, CNN reported that Mueller's attorneys visited the Howell hearing room for an in camera proceeding at a time when key decisions were made in the case.
A spokesman for Mueller's office declined to comment on the role played by his team in the case.
The firm's efforts to get the appeal court to overturn Howell's outrage rendered by him were unsuccessful. The company also tried to convince the Supreme Court to suspend the order for contempt of court and fined $ 50,000 a day.
The company has so far written off its legal arguments. , his request to obtain from the Supreme Court the addition of the case to his role remains pending. The motion is largely based on unfounded legal arguments about the issue of sovereign state immunity in criminal cases.
The company's lawyers warn against the "nightmare of foreign policy that would result if US courts engaged foreign states in national criminal proceedings." The lawyers also sought to increase the seriousness of the dispute by describing it as a direct confrontation between prosecutors and the foreign country owning the company.
The company's request appears to be aimed at capturing the attention of the highest Trump administration officials by linking the company's arguments with regard to sovereign immunity against long-term concerns. date in US conservative circles about US officials subject to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. In their statements, the firm's lawyers cite the comments of National Security Advisor John Bolton in September denouncing the court as well-founded.
The legal point of view of the company is that US courts should not subject foreign countries or their wholly-owned companies. , subpoena in criminal cases without the express permission of Congress. The DC Circuit's decision concluded that the current US law regulating these applications only dealt with civil cases, not criminal cases.
The firm's lawyers also provide for a kind of absolute escalation of the use of criminal cases to target Americans as court decisions are not dismissed. A recent example cited by lawyers: China's detention of a former Canadian diplomat last month, which many saw as a retaliatory measure after Canada's arrest of Meng's executive Wanzhou, daughter of the founder of China's Huawei technology giant.
"If the decision is upheld, the judgment below could throw the principles of immunity into disarray around the world," wrote the firm's lawyers, whose names were deleted from the records with leave of the Supreme Court.
As the Supreme Court unveiled the redacted petition on Tuesday, the judges also ordered that various documents related to the company's stay application be sealed in their entirety. The court gave no explanation for the decision, which seemed to reject a proposal by the Committee of Rapporteurs on Freedom of the Press to open judicial files in this case.
"It is disappointing that the Court seems at this point that the Society's application for suspension and the documents relating thereto remain under seal," said Katie Townsend of the Committee of Rapporteurs. "We intend to continue to advocate for the widest possible public access to the filings of this case both in the Supreme Court and in the DC circuit."
Disclosure: Gerstein sits on the Board of Directors of the Reporters Committee.
