STILL UNDER WRAPS

Biden’s Justice Department Fights Release of Memo Explaining Why Trump Wasn’t Charged

The department released two new pages from the document Monday night, but they didn’t shed any more light on the decision.

Earlier this month, federal Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled that a key memo that could help explain former Attorney General William Barr’s decision not to charge Donald Trump with a crime at the climax of the Mueller investigation should be released to the public in full. Late Monday, the Justice Department confirmed that it intends to fight that ruling, putting the Biden administration in the strange position of helping out Trump and his allies who want to keep the memo under wraps. Alongside its court filings, the DoJ released two new pages from the document on Monday night, but, according to CNN, those pages only contained mundane bureaucratic details. The filings confirmed that the DoJ will appeal Jackson’s ruling to release the full document, but didn’t explain its reasoning. Politico reported that it appears the decision was made to avoid setting a precedent that could force the department to release other sensitive internal documents to the public in future.