The Supreme Court has blocked Congress’s access to the secret testimony from Special Counsel Mueller’s Russia investigation, according to the Associated Press.
The Democrats in Congress who were seeking access to the testimony will be blocked from obtaining it until after November.
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case next term, which begins in October. This makes the decision due by the end of the court’s term in 2021.
Last July, the Democrat-led House Judiciary Committee asked a judge for access to information the Justice Department withheld when it made most of Mueller’s report public. Lawyers for the House said the committee needed the uncut report as part of its impeachment investigation of Trump, but that process eventually went forward without the House seeing the details it sought.
House Democrats also argued that they needed to see the hundreds of deletions and supporting testimony to compare statements witnesses made in the Mueller investigation with statements some of those same witnesses made to the House.
A federal appeals court ruled the documents should be turned over earlier this year which is reversed by this Supreme Court ruling.
The Democrats were hopeful the Mueller investigation testimony would provide ammo for their electoral efforts.
It’s unclear what might have been in the secret testimony, but the AP report notes that witnesses who were part of Trump’s inner circle testified voluntarily and transcripts of those interviews have been partially released in a redacted form.
The redactions mostly pertain to the alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia:
Most of the redactions related to the grand jury pertain to the portion of Mueller’s investigation that focused on alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Mueller’s inquiry into alleged obstruction of justice by Trump was conducted almost entirely through voluntary interviews, rather than grand jury testimony or subpoenas.
