The Supreme Court on Thursday ensured that grand jury testimony from special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia collusion probe will not be released before the November election.
The justices said they will hear a case next term over whether the Justice Department must release the material after House Democrats had petitioned the courts in 2019 for the documents.
The grand jury material was part of the full Mueller report on the 2016 election and alleged conspiracy between Russia officials and the Trump campaign.
The Trump Justice Department published a redacted version of the Mueller report and gave the chairman and ranking members of the House and Senate judiciary committees the opportunity to review the unredacted report sans grand jury material, saying the attorney general did not have the authority to disclose that to Congress under the federal rules of criminal procedure.
House Democrats, though, sought to obtain the grand jury materials, arguing they are part of the lawmakers’ judicial proceeding, citing the impeachment of the president.
The district court in D.C., as well as the circuit court, sided with the lawmakers.
The Justice Department then petitioned the Supreme Court and was granted an injunction in May against turning over the information until the justices decided whether to hear the case.
On Monday, the high court announced it would hear their legal battle, leaving the injunction in place until the case is decided.
The earliest the court could hear oral arguments in the matter would be October, leaving a decision unlikely to come until after the November election.
