WASHINGTON — The U.S. Justice Department must release a 2019 memo advising then-Attorney General Bill Barr on how to handle the conclusion of the Mueller investigation and the department’s decision not to charge Donald Trump, a federal appeals court ruled.
The 3-0 decision Friday, by a panel of judges of the appeals court in Washington, upholds a lower court that ordered the department to make the March 2019 document public after finding that DOJ lawyers failed to accurately describe it from the start.
The district judge had found that the memo was about the kind of public statement Barr should make over special counsel Robert Mueller’s findings and not — as she said she had been led to believe — whether the Justice Department was seriously considering whether to bring charges against Trump.
