A US judge on Friday handed a major victory to House Democrats investigating US President Donald Trump and directed his administration to hand over an unredacted copy of secret grand jury testimony from special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
US District Judge Beryl Howell also found that House Democrats are engaged in a legal impeachment inquiry, undercutting arguments from House Republicans and the administration that launching the probe is illegitimate without an initial vote.
The judge said the House does not need to vote on a resolution before formally initiating an impeachment inquiry, confirming the wide powers of Congress to carry out its constitutional role of conducting oversight.
She ordered the Justice Department to give the House Judiciary Committee an unredacted copy of the Mueller report by October 30. The Justice Department had argued that secret material from grand jury proceedings could not be provided to the Judiciary Committee after the body issued a subpoena.
House Democrats are investigating Trump for applying pressure on Ukraine’s president to dig up political dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden, a frontrunner to face off against the president in next year’s election.
The Mueller report found Russia meddled in the 2016 US election but did not find sufficient evidence to establish a criminal conspiracy between the Kremlin and the 2016 Trump campaign. The special counsel did not come to a conclusion on whether Trump obstructed justice but appeared to signal that it was up to Congress to take up the matter.
