» Impeachment inquiry is legal, judge rules,

House panel also is allowed access to Mueller evidence.

The House is legally engaged in an impeachment inquiry, a federal judge ruled Friday, delivering a victory to House Democrats and undercutting arguments by President Donald Trump and Republicans that the investigation is a sham.

The House Judiciary Committee is entitled to view secret grand jury evidence gathered by the special counsel, Robert Mueller, Judge Beryl A. Howell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled in a 75-page opinion. Attorney General William Barr had withheld the material from lawmakers.

Typically, Congress has no right to view secret evidence gathered by a grand jury. But in 1974, the courts permitted the committee weighing whether to impeach President Richard Nixon to see such materials — and, Howell ruled, the House is now engaged in the same process focused on Trump.

Howell, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, wrote that law enforcement officials’ need to keep the information secret from Congress was “minimal” and easily outweighed by lawmakers’ need for it.

“Tipping the scale even further toward disclosure is the public’s interest in a diligent and thorough investigation into, and in a final determination about, potentially impeachable conduct by the president described in the Mueller report,” she wrote.

In reaching that decision, she rejected the contention by Trump and his allies that the investigation Democrats are pursuing, which has since expanded to encompass the Ukraine scandal, is not a legitimate impeachment inquiry.