Graham Phillips, an attorney involved in the case that may limit special counsel Robert Mueller's options to release a report, said, "You don't have to worry about subverting grand jury secrecy generally." | Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images Legal Court grapples with case that could impact release of Mueller report The case could close off some options Mueller may have to release a public report or to transmit one to Congress.

A federal appeals court wrestled Friday with a case that could limit special counsel Robert Mueller's options to release a report on the findings of his probe into the Trump campaign's alleged ties to Russia.

The case — heard by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Friday morning — has no direct connection to Mueller's investigation, but centers on issues of grand jury secrecy and when judges have the power to disclose information gathered through that process.


A ruling that judges lack that power could close off some options Mueller may have to release a public report or to transmit one to Congress.

The three-judge panel issued no immediate decision and gave no definitive indication of where the court will come out, but one of the judges — Greg Katsas — seemed to favor a reading of court rules that would require judges to strictly enforce secrecy.

The dispute before the court Friday involves a request for access to a grand jury investigation into the 1956 disappearance of Columbia University lecturer Jesus Galindez. There are indications that Galindez, a political activist, was kidnapped from New York, taken to the Dominican Republic and murdered. Some have long suspected the involvement of the CIA in either the murder or a cover-up.

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Katsas, the D.C. Circuit's only Trump appointee, sounded highly skeptical of allowing judges broad discretion to release grand jury materials.

"You’re then completely outside the rule and into a nine-factor balancing test," the judge said. "My main concern is the unbounded notion of just throwing it open to a test like that."

Graham Phillips, an attorney for the author seeking the records on the six-decade mystery, Stuart McKeever, tried to reassure Katsas that opening up the records wouldn't lead to a flood of similar requests.

"You don't have to worry that I am throwing open Pandora's Box," Phillips said. "You don't have to worry about subverting grand jury secrecy generally."

Neither the lawyers nor the judges made any mention Friday of the Mueller probe, but there was an extended debate about the significance of a 1974 decision that authorized the transmission of a report the Watergate special counsel prepared on potential crimes by former President Richard Nixon.

Judge Sri Srinivasan said the decision seemed to be based in part on a conclusion that judges do have the right to release grand jury secrets outside of the six specific exceptions to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e), which addresses the issue.

"I'm interested in what we're supposed to do with Haldeman," said Srinivasan, referring to the official whose name appears atop the 1974 case, Nixon chief of staff H.R. Haldeman.

However, Justice Department attorney Brad Hinselwood seemed to minimize the significance of the Watergate ruling, arguing that it was briefed, argued and decided in three days and came to the court through a process where lower court decisions are not typically subjected to searching review.

"It contains no reasoning," Hinselwood said of the 1974 decision.

But Srinivasan noted that the ruling was one from the full bench of the appeals court, not the three-judge panel which hears a typical case.

While Katsas seemed to oppose allowing judges to open up cases of historical interest, the other two judges on the panel were harder to read. Srinivsasan, an appointee of President Barack Obama, raised some points that could support disclosure and others that would seem to argue against it.

The third judge on the case, Reagan appointee Douglas Ginsburg, asked few questions during the argument, but also expressed interest in the relevance of the Watergate case.