Monday’s court arguments represent one of the many ways former special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation continues to linger even though his office shuttered earlier this spring. | Getty Images Legal Judge signals interest in removing Mueller report redactions ‘That’s what open government is all about,’ Judge Reggie Walton said during court arguments over a FOIA lawsuit against the Justice Department.

A federal judge signaled Monday he’s considering removing the Mueller report’s redactions.

During more than two hours of oral arguments in Washington, District Judge Reggie Walton appeared on several occasions to side with attorneys for BuzzFeed and the nonprofit Electronic Privacy Information Center, which are seeking to remove the black bars covering nearly 1,000 items in former special counsel Robert Mueller’s final 448-page final report.


Walton didn’t issue an opinion from the bench on the case, which centers on a pair of consolidated lawsuits filed against the Justice Department under the Freedom of Information Act. But the judge, an appointee of President George W. Bush, sounded increasingly skeptical of the government's arguments pressing him to leave the redactions untouched.

“That’s what open government is about,” Walton said during one exchange, citing the resolution of a 2008 sex crimes case against financier Jeffrey Epstein as an example of how obfuscating the reasons behind not prosecuting high-profile people generates public distrust in the country’s criminal justice system.

Indeed, EPIC and BuzzFeed filed their lawsuit in order to uncover such information — the redacted explanation of why the special counsel didn’t bring charges against the likes of Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner. And in court Monday, their attorneys argued that disclosing these details would help resolve whether the president is right to claim the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election was a “witch hunt.”

“It’s something that frankly ripped this country apart,” argued Matt Topic, an attorney for BuzzFeed, regarding the competing and often bitter partisan claims surrounding the credibility of Mueller’s investigation. “The people deserve to know as much as they possibly can.”

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Monday’s court arguments represent one of the many ways the Mueller investigation continues to linger even though the special counsel’s office shuttered earlier this spring. House Judiciary Committee Democrats last month asked the chief judge of the D.C. District Court to issue an order to let them see the underlying materials the special counsel used. The Democrats said they need the information to make a decision about whether to impeach the president.

While Walton has the power to issue an opinion that goes directly to the BuzzFeed and EPIC lawsuit, he’s also weighing another incremental step the two organizations have requested. Essentially, they asked Walton to review the unredacted Mueller report to see if the exemptions the Justice Department is citing to block release of the full document actually line up with what’s allowed under the law.

Several of the judge’s questions appeared designed to understand what he’d get out of doing that kind of analysis himself. But he also made several comments over the course of the hearing suggesting where he may fall.

For example, Walton said he had “some concerns” about trying to reconcile public statements Trump and Attorney General William Barr have made about the report with the content of the report itself.

The judge pointed to Trump’s claims that Mueller found “no collusion” between his campaign and Russia and the president’s insistence that he had been exonerated from a possible obstruction of justice charge. These comments, Walton said, appeared bolstered by Barr’s description of Mueller’s findings during a DOJ news conference — before the public and media could read the document for themselves.

“It’d seem to be inconsistent with what the report itself said,” Walton said. The judge also cited a letter Mueller’s office sent to Barr questioning the attorney general’s decision to release a four-page summary of the investigation’s conclusions that “did not fully capture the context, nature and substance” of the report.

Separately on Monday, Walton raised questions about a DOJ submission defending the agency’s decision to black out large portions of the Mueller report.

“I also worked for the department,” Walton said. “Sometimes the body does what the head wants.”

Courtney Enlow, a DOJ trial attorney, defended the Mueller report redactions and insisted they all fall inside the exemptions allowed under FOIA, such as the need to keep grand jury information private and protect the government’s investigative methods. The government can also withhold information for national security purposes or to maintain people’s privacy.

Enlow argued that additional disclosures would harm several ongoing investigations Mueller handed off to other federal prosecutors. And she warned that releasing redacted information in the special counsel report could undercut longtime Trump aide Roger Stone’s ability to get a fair trial in his case that centers on lying to Congress, witness tampering and obstructing justice. He is set to stand trial in November.

“Nothing more is required here, your honor,” Enlow said.

Enlow also said Buzzfeed and EPIC lawyers are “speculating” as they seek to highlight potential disclosures that would come should the redactions be removed from the report, which she noted were made with help from Mueller’s team.

“This is not a singular person who was making decisions with redactions,” she said.

At the conclusion of the hearing, Walton acknowledged the likelihood that whatever he does will generate an appeal. “I’ll try to get this done as quickly as I can, so we can have this matter resolved one way or another,” he said.