Department of Justice v. House Committee on the Judiciary, which was previously scheduled for argument before the Supreme Court of the United States on December 2, 2020, has been removed from the court’s December argument calendar after the court granted the House Judiciary Committee’s motion for the move.
The case came on a writ of certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. It concerns the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and whether an impeachment trial conducted by the U.S. Senate counts as a judicial proceeding for the purposes of disclosing secret grand jury information.
The U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary requested access to secret grand jury materials referenced in Robert Mueller’s report about his investigation into potential Russian interference in the 2016 election. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia agreed to disclose the materials, ruling that a potential U.S. Senate impeachment trial counted as a judicial proceeding that allowed disclosure of secret grand jury materials. The D.C. Circuit affirmed the lower court’s decision.
As of November 20, 2020, the United States Supreme Court had agreed to hear 45 cases during its 2020-2021 term. Of those, 12 were originally scheduled for the 2019-2020 term but were delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
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