ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — A judge is pressing the U.S. government to explain why a portion of the memo authorizing Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of foreign election interference and former President Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign remains classified seven years after it was issued.
At a hearing Friday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, Judge Leonie Brinkema gave the Justice Department until Wednesday to explain why the passage must remain classified.
A group of media organizations is asking that the section of the memo from then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein be made public. It says it believes the classified portion refers to allegations that Egypt covertly gave $10 million to Trump’s cash-strapped campaign in the final days of the 2016 campaign.
Much of Rosenstein’s memo authorizing the Mueller probe was declassified and made public in the prosecution of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who was also investigated by Mueller. Manafort was convicted and sentenced in 2019 to nearly four years in prison, but in 2020 was released to home confinement because of the coronavirus. Manafort eventually received a pardon from Trump in December 2020.
At Friday’s hearing, Brinkema told the press coalition’s lawyers that she doesn’t have the ability to make public anything from the trial, like the redacted portion of the Rosenstein memo, if that information is still classified. She said her only option is to press the government to explain its reasons for continued classification.
Prosecutor Drew Bradylyons said that multiple government agencies have a stake in the classification, and sought 30 days to provide Brinkema an explanation of whether the passage could be declassified, or why it must remain secret.
Brinkema said that’s too long, and gave the government until Wednesday to provide an explanation.
Brinkema, who said she has reviewed the classified portion of the memo, said that “unless they have a good reason, I don’t see why it should be kept under seal.”
Ted Boutros, a lawyer representing the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and The Washington Post, said the information is of high public interest, given Trump’s ongoing presidential campaign. And the need for secrecy has eroded, he said, now that the investigation has closed and the broad outlines of the Egypt allegations are now publicly known.
“(T)he Egypt investigation involved matters of grave and momentous national concern: a foreign nation’s potential bribery of, and illegal campaign contributions to, a presidential candidate who became president and who is running for that office again,” the press coalition’s lawyers wrote in their court filing. “(T)here is an overwhelming public interest in the fullest amount of disclosure possible here.”
It’s not clear that declassifying the passage in question will produce any significant revelations about the investigation. Details about the Egypt probe became public in 2020 as part of a CNN investigation, and a Washington Post report earlier this year fleshed out additional details.
According to the media reports, members of Mueller’s team were investigating reports from U.S. intelligence that Egyptian President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi sought to give Trump $10 million to boost his 2016 presidential campaign. Specifically, the reporting states that an organization linked to Egyptian intelligence withdrew $10 million in cash, in $100 bills, from the National Bank of Egypt right around the time Trump gave his own campaign a $10 million contribution.
Trump’s campaign has denied wrongdoing and notes that the investigation was closed without criminal charges.
Some of the prosecutors have said their investigation was blocked or thwarted by senior officials in the Trump administration,.
