Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Judge says House to get Mueller’s grand jury files
WASHINGTON — A judge on Friday ordered the Justice Department to give the House secret grand jury testimony from former special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, handing a victory to Democrats who want the information for the impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump.
Chief U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell ordered the department to turn over the materials by Wednesday. A Justice Department spokeswoman said it was reviewing the decision.
The ruling, which also affirmed the legality of the ongoing impeachment inquiry, comes as Democrats gather testimony about the Trump administration’s efforts to get Ukraine to investigate political rival Joe Biden and the Democrats. The Mueller materials could reveal previously hidden details to lawmakers about Trump’s actions during the 2016 election and become part of the impeachment push.
The material covered by Howell’s order includes redacted grand jury material mentioned in Mueller’s report. The Justice Department says that information is the
only piece of the document that key lawmakers have not been able to access.
In a 75-page ruling accompanying the order, Howell slashed through many of the administration’s arguments for withholding materials from Congress, including that there was need to keep the information secret even though the investigation had ended.
While the Justice Department said it could not provide grand jury material under existing law, “DOJ is wrong,” she wrote. And though the White House and its Republican allies argued impeachment is illegitimate without a formal vote, she wrote: “A House resolution has never, in fact, been required.”
The judge also rejected the Justice Department’s argument that impeachment does not qualify as a “judicial proceeding.” That distinction matters because, though grand jury testimony is ordinarily secret, one exemption that allows it to be legally disclosed is in connection with a judicial proceeding.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler, the Democratic chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said he was pleased by the ruling.
“The court’s thoughtful ruling recognizes that our impeachment inquiry fully comports with the Constitution and thoroughly rejects the spurious White House claims to the contrary,” Nadler said in a statement. “This grand jury information that the Administration has tried to block the House from seeing will be critical to our work.”
Justice Department lawyers argued against providing the materials at a hearing earlier this month. They said House Democrats already had sufficient evidence from Mueller’s investigation, including copies of summaries of FBI witness interviews.
Many of the key witnesses in the Trump orbit, including former White House counsel Donald McGahn, submitted to voluntary interviews before Mueller’s team rather than appear before the grand jury, making it unclear how much significant new information tied to the president is contained in the grand jury transcripts.
The department also argued that the House panel could not show how the material would help in the committee’s investigations of Trump.
‘LOOKS FOR CORRUPTION’
Meanwhile, House investigators pressed forward with their impeachment inquiry Friday, issuing subpoenas to two Office of Management and Budget officials, one of whom has vowed not to cooperate with the Democrat-led proceeding.
The move came as Trump repeatedly insisted to reporters that he had done nothing wrong in pressing Ukraine to investigate the former vice president and his son, Hunter Biden. He also praised his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani as a “great crime fighter.”
Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump said Democrats are “trying to make us look as bad as possible” with the ongoing inquiry.
Closed depositions are scheduled to resume today after a two-day pause with an appearance by a Foreign Service officer stationed in Ukraine, who is expected to testify on efforts of Giuliani and others to oust the previous U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.
The three panels conducting the impeachment inquiry want Russell Vought, the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Michael Duffey, the agency’s head of national security, to testify early next month.
Vought said in a tweet earlier this week that neither he nor Duffey would testify.
At issue is whether the Trump administration withheld nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine as leverage to get it to investigate the president’s domestic political rivals.
Trump said Friday that he wasn’t worried about growing criminal investigations around Giuliani, because “Rudy is a great gentleman. He’s been a great crime fighter, he looks for corruption wherever he goes.”
Also Friday, the group representing government inspectors general said in a letter that the intelligence community whistleblower’s complaint about Trump’s phone call with his Ukrainian counterpart should have been turned over to Congress, and the Justice Department was wrong to block it.
The letter from the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency asserts that the intelligence community inspector general was right to want to get the complaint in lawmakers’ hands because it represented an “urgent concern,” and the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel opinion that blocked its transmission was “wrong as a matter of law and policy.” Signed by dozens of inspectors general from a mix of government agencies, it asks Steven Engel, who heads the Office of Legal Counsel, to withdraw or modify the opinion.
Earlier, a congressional aide confirmed the next slate of witnesses to appear before House investigators next week.
The committees will first hear on Monday from Charlie Kupperman, Trump’s deputy national security adviser, who worked alongside former national security adviser John Bolton.
Then on Tuesday, Alexander Vindman, European affairs director at the National Security Council, will appear. Vindman was in the U.S. delegation that attended Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s inauguration ceremony in May.
And on Wednesday, Kathryn Wheelbarger, acting assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, will testify, likely about what the Pentagon knew about the White House’s decision to withhold military aid from Ukraine.
Finally, on Thursday, Tim Morrison, the National Security Council’s Europe and Eurasia director, will face questioning. The acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, William Taylor, told investigators that Morrison was on the
July 25 call between Trump and Zelenskiy. Taylor said he spoke to Morrison several times about his concerns that Trump was using the aid as leverage to pressure Ukraine to investigate the Bidens.
NEW CONCERNS
Separately, Democrats are raising concerns that Trump may be using federal muscle to go after his opponents after it was reported Thursday night that the Justice Department is scrutinizing the government’s Russia probe as a criminal matter.
The Justice Department had previously considered it to be an administrative review, and Attorney General William Barr appointed John Durham, the U.S. attorney in Connecticut, to lead the inquiry into the origins of Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
People familiar with the matter declined to say when precisely officials gave it that designation, what specific crimes or people Durham was homing in on or what evidence he has found. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk about an ongoing investigation.
Federal law enforcement agencies generally needs some indication a crime has occurred to open a criminal investigation — though the standard for doing so is low, and the decision is not reviewed by a court.
Durham is examining what led the U.S. to open a counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign and the roles that various countries played in the U.S. probe. He also is investigating whether the surveillance and intelligence gathering methods used during the investigation were legal and appropriate.
Trump has long slammed the investigation, saying there was political bias at the FBI and the probe was all part of a “witch hunt” to discredit him and his presidency.
Asked about the investigation Friday, Trump said, “I can’t tell you what’s happening,” but “I will tell you this: I think you’re going to see a lot of really bad things.”
“I think you’ll see things that nobody would have believed,” he added.
The chairmen of the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees, which are leading the impeachment inquiry, said in a statement late Thursday that reports of the change “raise profound new concerns” that Barr’s Justice Department “has lost its independence and become a vehicle for President Trump’s political revenge.”
“If the Department of Justice may be used as a tool of political retribution, or to help the President with a political narrative for the next election, the rule of law will suffer new and irreparable damage,” Nadler and Rep. Adam Schiff said.
The change to a criminal investigation also was criticized as groundless and dangerous by the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, which has conducted its own investigation in largely bipartisan fashion in contrast to the House.
“Senate Intel is wrapping up a three-year bipartisan investigation, and we’ve found nothing remotely justifying this,” Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia tweeted Friday. “Mr. Barr’s ‘investigation’ has already jeopardized key international intelligence partnerships. He needs to come before Congress and explain himself.”
Trump’s allies noted that the designation of Durham’s investigation as criminal — first reported Thursday night by The New York Times — was a possible indication that Durham has found evidence of wrongdoing.
“Those who damaged America and broke the law to spread this hoax are about to face accountability,” Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., tweeted.
White House counselor Kellyanne Conway insisted the review was not political and served the public interest.
“Were other people at the highest levels of the DOJ and the FBI using that office and betraying the public trust to try to interfere in the 2016 election? Was there obstruction of justice? Was there destruction of evidence? I think we all have an interest in knowing that,” she said.