EPIC v. DOJ: Court Demands Trump’s Position on Release of Unredacted Mueller Report

A federal court ordered the Department of Justice today to determine President Trump's position on releasing the complete, unredacted Mueller Report. The President recently tweeted that he has "fully authorized the total Declassification of any & all documents" pertaining to the Russia investigation with "[n]o redactions!" During a hearing this morning in EPIC's and BuzzFeed's joint cases for disclosure of the complete Mueller Report, Judge Reggie B. Walton rejected the DOJ's claim that the White House did not actually intend to declassify any information via the President's tweets. "It's not the White House that declassifies information, it's the President," Walton said. Judge Walton ordered the DOJ to provide a sworn statement by Tuesday from someone "who has conferred directly with the President" as to whether the entire Mueller Report should be released. Walton has already ordered the DOJ to provide EPIC with extensive new material from the Report by November 2, in addition to the material previously disclosed as a result of EPIC's case. EPIC's Freedom of Information Act suit—the first in the nation for the disclosure of the Mueller Report—is EPIC v. DOJ, No. 19-810.