Fusion commissioned a retired British intelligence officer, Christopher Steele (pictured), to prepare the dossier. | Victoria Jones/PA via AP Federal judge rejects secrecy in legal fight linked to Trump dossier The House is demanding bank records of Fusion GPS, which commissioned work that led to information on Trump's ties to Russia.

A federal judge assigned to a fight between a House committee and the private investigation firm behind the so-called Trump dossier complained Wednesday that too much of the legal battle has been carried out in secret.

At a brief hearing in U.S. District Court in Washington, Judge Richard Leon told lawyers involved in the case that the dispute over the House Intelligence Committee’s demands for the bank records of investigative firm Fusion GPS is of major public significance and needs to be handled with greater transparency.


“If there were ever a case where [public access] is in the best interest of all concerned, this is one,” said Leon, an appointee of President George W. Bush. “This is not the kind of case, in my judgment, where there should be much if any time behind the [closed] door, unless it’s necessary. … I think the arguments can be made in open court on the nonconfidential, discrete legal questions.”

Fusion GPS filed suit last month, seeking to block the House intelligence panel from subpoenaing a large set of the firm’s bank records. The company argued that the broad subpoena violated First Amendment rights by intruding on its relationships with political clients, while the House committee said it needed the information as part of an inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

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The judge initially assigned to the case, Obama appointee Tanya Chutkan, urged the two sides to settle the dispute. Late last month, they reported they had done that and filed a sealed settlement agreement with the court.

Less than a week later, however, the deal appeared to fall apart. Fusion returned to court to complain that the House was breaking the agreement by again demanding records that bore no relation to the compilation of reports, prepared before the election, on Donald Trump’s alleged ties to Russia. The following day the case was “randomly reassigned” to Leon, according to a court docket entry.

At the 20-minute hearing Wednesday, Leon said he needed time to read up on the case and did not want to hear Fusion’s motion to block the subpoena until both sides’ written legal arguments were on the public record.

During the session, lawyers for both sides sought to minimize their responsibility for the secrecy.

While Fusion’s attorneys filed a notice with the court Tuesday night citing a variety of information that needed to be kept under wraps, Fusion lawyer William Taylor told Leon on Wednesday that the only thing the firm was seeking to keep out of the public record were the names of its clients and its contractors. The case would be moot if those names were released, Taylor said.

And although the House filed its response to Fusion’s latest request for a restraining order entirely under seal, House General Counsel Thomas Hungar said he was trying to clear a public version of that filing with other lawyers in the case.

“I certainly agree there’s no reason why this hearing can’t be conducted in public,” Hungar said.

He urged the judge to move quickly in the case, due to the House panel’s ongoing investigation.

“We’ve already been delayed, from the committee’s perspective, more than three months in obtaining information from Fusion,” Hungar said.

However, Leon called some of the issues presented in the case “novel” and said he wanted time to review the written filings before holding a hearing, which he set for Nov. 30.

“There’s not a lot of case law in this area. … This not an area where there are oodles of” legal precedents, the judge added. “It's best not to put the court before the horse. Let the public see the pleadings . … This is not a normal case.”

One open question is whether the newly assigned judge will remain on the case.

Leon has co-taught classes on congressional investigations at Georgetown law school with John Podesta, who was Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman. The hacking of Podesta’s email account is considered one of the most egregious acts of election-related interference alleged to have originated with Russia during the presidential race. In addition, a few of Leon’s emails were in the hacked archive published by WikiLeaks.

So far, neither side has asked Leon to recuse himself from the case.

The initial round of the legal battle between Fusion and the House committee seemed to lead to public identification of who paid for research related to the Trump dossier — a compendium of accurate, inaccurate and unverified claims about the then-candidate’s ties to Russia. Fusion commissioned a retired British intelligence officer, Christopher Steele, to prepare the compilation.

As the House panel pressed for Fusion’s bank records, a Washington law firm confirmed that the Democratic National Committee and Clinton’s presidential campaign paid the firm to produce the dossier with the help of Steele. The Washington Free Beacon and its benefactor, Paul Singer, later acknowledged paying Fusion to develop negative information about Trump during the Republican primary campaign.

In addition to the legal dispute between Fusion and the House panel, Leon has also been assigned a libel suit that three Russian businessmen named in the dossier filed against the investigative firm last month. The plaintiffs are among the backers of Alfa Bank, a financial institution that the dossier accuses of involvement in Russian efforts to influence the U.S. presidential race.

