U.S. archivists release Watergate report that could be possible ‘road map’ for Mueller

under seal.

Bates said as a Starr prosecutor in 1997, he learned that despite the potential for the “road map” to present a legal model for future investigations, such as Mueller’s it was not publicly available when he asked the National Archives for a copy to study.

“It is one of the only precedents of a report that has had to go through that kind of process [under grand jury secrecy rules] to get to the House for consideration as grounds for impeachment,” Bates said in an interview. “If Mueller could say, ‘We have structured this report the way Leon Jaworski did in 1974, and Judge Sirica approved it,’ that might be persuasive in this case.”

Jaworski faced a problem similar to one that may confront Mueller: He had relevant evidence but not, Jaworski concluded, the constitutional authority to indict a sitting president. Congress had the authority to impeach Nixon, but not the evidence. In the end, the House committee sought access to evidence gathered by prosecutors, the grand jury adopted the road map, and Sirica and the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia authorized its transmittal under seal.

Howell, the judge who ordered the road map’s release, is also overseeing the Mueller grand jury, and as chief judge, would decide any similar release request were one made for that grand jury material.

In her order, she directed archivists to disclose Special Counsel Robert Mueller leaves a meeting with members of the Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington in 2017.

81 of 97 supporting documents that have been made public elsewhere, and to review the rest for release.

Other veterans of past White House investigations differed on the Road Map’s lessons.

Paul Rosenzweig, who served on Starr’s team, said the document is important for historians, but that Justice Department regulations issued since then provide for Mueller to report to his supervisor, currently Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

Nick Akerman, who served as an assistant prosecutor on Jaworski’s team, said however it could provide a model for Mueller, particularly should his team decide the president engaged in wrongdoing but that department regulations do not allow them to seek an indictment or make a case for impeachment.

“It’s absolutely an approach he could take – simply giving them the facts, without coming to a conclusion,” Akerman said.