The Supreme Court handed a big defeat to the Democrats on Thursday. Progressives won’t get to sneak a peek at the classified grand jury material compiled for Robert Muller to burn President Donald Trump at the stake with in the Russia Collusion witch-hunt. At least, not until after the election. They granted the administration’s request to push the case off to the next term.
Grand Jury documents stay sealed
Democrats are not having a good week. They just learned the bad news that secret material from Robert Mueller’s grand jury will not be released in time to use it against President Trump. The House of Representatives, controlled by liberals of the Democrat persuasion were hoping to be able to dig up mud they could use to help get Biden into the White House.
The Department of Justice is chalking it up as a victory. Anything that frustrates Democrats is a good thing. They insist there’s a good reason why portions of Mueller’s report were shaded out with black magic marker. The redactions are meant to “protect grand jury information and underlying grand jury testimony and exhibits that relate to certain individuals and events.”
The issue boils down to separation of powers. As noted by a DOJ statement, “The case is a major separation of powers fight, testing the ability of the Justice Department to control grand jury information from a historic, deeply political investigation it conducted that could also aid congressional investigations.”
A democrat Holy Grail
Democrats are treating the material like the holy grail. As CNN describes, “The grand jury materials in question could shed considerable light on Russian election-meddling and Trump’s response in 2016.” They just can’t stop beating that dead Russian horse. They think if they ignore all the evidence they collected, and locked away, that proves there was no collusion, some will spontaneously appear like magic.
“Dozens of witnesses testified before Mueller’s grand jury.” That means there must be some words in there that can be twisted against someone. Take Paul Manafort for example. Mueller’s panel interviewed the former Trump campaign chairman and “at least two people who attended the Trump Tower meeting” in the summer of 2016. That should be a goldmine for useful soundbites.
Democrats were going spastic to get their hands on the material in time to use it before the election. They told the justices that “any delay would threaten the committee’s ability to complete its investigation during the current Congress.” That would be devastating. Trump would win and they might even lose their majority in the house. Worse, some of them could start hanging around at the end of a rope.
CNN’s legal expert says it’s a lost cause already for progressives. “Even if the court hears arguments in November, it’s unlikely it would render a decision before January 3, 2020.” That is when “this Congress ends and this case along with it.”