The U.S. Justice Department on Oct. 28 said it had appealed a lower court’s decision ordering it to turn over an unredacted copy of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report. The report details Russian meddling in the 2016 election to the Democratically-controlled House Judiciary Committee.
In a filing with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the department also asked the court to stay its Friday order directing the government to turn over the unredacted report by Oct. 30 while its appeal is pending.
The Justice Department previously tried to block Democrats from accessing the full, unredacted Mueller report. They said it would require the disclosure of secret grand jury materials and potentially harm ongoing investigations.
“A stay is warranted because, without a stay, the department will be irreparably harmed,” the department wrote in its notice to the court. “Once that information is disclosed, it cannot be recalled, and the confidentiality of the grand jury information will be lost for all time.”
The Justice Department’s appeal comes after the district’s Chief Judge Beryl Howell on Friday issued a 75-page opinion. She criticized the White House and Justice Department for blocking efforts by House Democrats to get information through congressional subpoenas.
The Justice Department, in its filing, responded to that part of Howell’s ruling.
“According to public statements made by the Speaker of the House, the Mueller report is not the current focus of impeachment activity,” the department wrote. Adding that it believes the appellate court will agree that Democrats have “not demonstrated a particularized need for the grand jury information in light of the information already in the public domain and the much different focus of ongoing impeachment proceedings in the House.”
Mueller submitted his report to U.S. Attorney General William Barr in March after completing a 22-month investigation that detailed Russia’s campaign of hacking and propaganda to boost Trump’s candidacy in the 2016 election.
Mueller’s investigation found insufficient evidence to establish that Trump and his campaign had engaged in a criminal conspiracy with Russia.
