Journalists were kept away from a secret federal appeals court hearing on Friday in Washington, D.C., as officials sealed off an entire floor for arguments in a mysterious grand jury case which some believe could be related to the Special Counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 elections.
The case – known officially as “In re: Grand Jury Subpoena” – has been sealed in its entirety when it comes to public records, as it moved from the district court to the appeals court level in recent months.
Reporters at the courthouse – which is just down the hill from the U.S. Capitol – at first tried to gather outside the courtroom where the secret arguments were going to take place, but then security officials sealed off the entire fifth floor of the building, making it nearly impossible to find out who was involved in the matter.
“We have spread out across the building,” tweeted Darren Samuelsohn, a reporter for Politico. “No sightings yet to report of note.”
Reporters kicked off the 5th floor entirely for a sealed appeals hearing that may involve #Mueller on s grand jury dispute. They are even searching stairwells for reporters. We have split up and trying to cover all entrances and exits…. — Sarah N. Lynch (@SarahNLynch) December 14, 2018
Arguments in the sealed Mueller case are ongoing. Everyone was booted out of the Court of Appeals and the entire floor was cleared. — Charlie Gile (@CharlieGileNBC) December 14, 2018
The possible tie to the Mueller investigation was reported by Politico earlier this year, when one of their reporters observed someone asking for a secret court filing to take to a law firm involved in the matter.
There are two different sealed case involving an unknown grand jury which have attracted attention at the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals – as the relatively speedy nature of the cases – and then today’s sealing off of an entire floor – has prompted intense interest.
“To this day, I can’t fathom what the heck it could be that would move this fast and get this much secrecy,” said national security lawyer Bradley Moss.
Several media folks have asked me and colleagues for weeks what we can imagine this case being, assuming Trump's people are telling the truth and it's not them. To this day, I can't fathom what the heck it could be that would move this fast and get this much secrecy. https://t.co/EH6X08KDq8 — Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) December 14, 2018
Here’s the docket on the case – as you can see, it offers little in the way of information.
But with officials sealing off the entire courthouse floor to deal with it – the case certainly raises questions about what’s going on.
Catalyst8487 on December 14th, 2018 at 18:22 UTC »
Some tin-foil for your Friday:
Judge Howell was the one that unsealed the "Watergate Road Map", on Oct 11. This case was originally brought to docket on Oct 10. This case has the same judge (Howell) as the one who unsealed the roadmap. Howell has already ruled in the past that Mueller's mandate is constitutional.Hot take time: Mueller is attempting to indict a sitting president. He filed his case and Trump's legal team (rightly) stated "no way, there's no precedent". Howell was then forced to unseal the roadmap to demonstrate precedence. Trump's team is now going through all the legal wickets they can to delay or prevent this court filing from going through. That they blocked off the entire floor indicates to me that they want to take no chances that a part of the information gets out, gets skewed, and something is misrepresented. If it's the indictment of a sitting president the courts will want to ensure in every way they can that all the information is delivered at once with minimal opportunity to spin or distort the facts.
CebraQuasar on December 14th, 2018 at 17:39 UTC »
Everybody here needs to read this article from October.
It's not that farfetched. Mueller may have subpoenaed the president months ago, and he's been trying to appeal it behind the scenes ever since.
Edit: Thank you for my first precious metals, kind strangers!
ReddiGen on December 14th, 2018 at 17:02 UTC »
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