Justice Department must disclose secret Mueller grand jury evidence to Congress, appeals court finds

WASHINGTON - The Justice Department must release to congressional Democrats secret grand jury evidence lawmakers are seeking in ongoing investigations into President Trump, a federal appeals court in Washington ruled Tuesday.

The divided ruling, which can be appealed, is a victory for Democratic lawmakers in one of a set of separation-of-powers lawsuits filed before the House vote to impeach President Trump and his acquittal in the Senate in February.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upheld a lower court order that requires the department to disclose to the House certain secret material from Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

The 2-1 decision is unlikely to be the final word and can be appealed to the full court or to the Supreme Court.

Judge Judith W. Rogers wrote the majority opinion, joined by Judge Thomas B. Griffith, who agreed with her overall judgment. Judge Neomi Rao filed a dissent.

The appeals court was reviewing an earlier ruling from Chief U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell who found the House, in its impeachment investigation, was legally engaged in a judicial process that exempts Congress from secrecy rules that typically shield grand jury materials from disclosure.

Justice Department lawyers had urged the court to stay out of a political dispute between Congress and the Trump administration, and said exemptions allowing disclosure in certain cases do not apply to an impeachment proceeding. DOJ lawyers suggested a previous Watergate-era ruling affirming that grand-jury materials could be shared with the House during the investigation of President Nixon had been wrongly decided.

The lawsuit was filed before the formal start of the impeachment inquiry centered on Trump's alleged effort to pressure Ukraine to investigate a political rival. But House lawyers told the court that lawmakers are still trying to determine whether Trump lied in his written responses to questions from Mueller's investigators.

Lawmakers said they needed access to the material to try to establish a pattern of the president’s conduct.