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The Electronic Privacy Information Center has sued the Department of Justice to release special counsel Robert Mueller’s final report to Attorney General William Barr regarding the prosecutorial decisions in his investigation— and other nonpublic records from the investigation.
The new Freedom of Information Act lawsuit came less than two hours after the Justice Department announced the Mueller investigation’s wrapped up Friday night.
The group also points out to the court a number of other documents Mueller was to prepare and transmit to the attorney general during his tenure.
“The public has a right to know the full scope of Russian interference in the 2016 United States presidential election and whether the President of the United States played any role in such interference,” the government transparency advocacy group wrote in the lawsuit in DC federal court. “The public also has a right to know whether the President unlawfully obstructed any investigation into Russian election interference or related matters. The requested records are vital to the public’s understanding of these issues and to the integrity of the political system of the United States.”
The group first asked the Justice Department in November 2018 for a wide swath of non-public records in the special counsel investigation.
The Justice Department said the unusual circumstances of the request allowed the agency more time to decide what to release — but DOJ also noted it could not “identify a particular urgency” to get information to the public quickly, according to the lawsuit.
Many other lawsuits already exist in the same federal court, from other groups seeking slivers of documents and disclosures related to Mueller’s investigation. Some have been successful to a limited extent, winning the public release so far of emails between the special counsel’s office and the media, and, in other situations, the unsealing of some court records, for instance.
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