Mueller report redactions unlikely to be revealed before presidential election after Supreme Court agrees to hear Trump appeal

The US Supreme Court agreed to hear the Trump administration’s bid to keep parts of prosecutor Robert Mueller’s report on alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election redacted, likely ensuring the material won’t sway 2020 votes.

Tuesday’s Supreme Court decision hands congressional Democrats at least a temporary defeat in their effort to force disclosure of secrets that they hope can be used to damage President Donald Trump politically. The case won’t be heard until the court’s next term, which begins in October, so it won’t likely be decided until after the November 3 election.

The Democrat-controlled US House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed the redacted materials last year and won a lower court ruling in March ordering the administration to turn over the documents. The Supreme Court put a temporary hold on the order in May, pending its decision on whether to hear Trump’s appeal. 

Attorney General Robert Barr blacked out certain material, including grand jury testimony, before releasing Mueller’s 448-page report in April 2019, a move that Democrats said was made to hide information that would be politically damaging for Trump. The former special counsel found no evidence that Trump or members of his campaign team conspired with Russia to influence the 2016 election.

Mueller’s report claimed that the Russian government interfered in the election in “sweeping and systematic fashion,” but key allegations remain unsubstantiated. For instance, Mueller’s team of lawyers failed to verify an FBI supposition that Russian hackers breached at least one Florida voting machine. And to this day, there has been no evidence proving that Moscow stole Democratic National Committee emails.

In fact, Shawn Henry, president of CrowdStrike, the cyber-security firm that first accused Russia of hacking the DNC in 2016, admitted under oath in December 2017 congressional testimony that he had no concrete evidence that the emails in question were exfiltrated by Russia.

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