Reporters tracking the grand jury component of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation experienced an interesting and unusual development Friday when officials closed off the whole fifth floor of the federal courthouse in DC without explanation.
BuzzFeed News' Zoe Tillman summarizes how events unfolded:
More than an hour before arguments were scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m., reporters started to gather in the hallway outside the courtroom, hoping to see a familiar face go inside — a member of Mueller’s team, perhaps, or a defense lawyer known to represent someone connected to the Russia investigation or the administration. None were spotted. By the time arguments began, at least a dozen reporters were huddled outside the courtroom, and more continued to show up as the morning went on.
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The first case was argued. Then the second. Still nothing. At the end of arguments in the second case, court employees instructed everyone in the courtroom to leave. Court staff and security officials then cleared the entire floor, an unusual occurrence in the courthouse. Reporters scattered, staking out other hallways, stairwells, and exits. At one point at least 20 journalists roamed the courthouse building and its grounds.
POLITICO originally broke the story in October that Mueller’s team — which is investigating whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russians trying to influence the 2016 election and whether President Donald Trump tried impede the ongoing probe — had been dragged into court by a witness battling a subpoena. POLITICO discovered the Mueller connection after a reporter sitting in the court’s clerk office overheard a man request a document in the case from the special counsel’s office. The man declined to identify himself or his client when approached by POLITICO.
Another clue linking the case to Mueller came a few weeks later when lawyers for the witness fighting the subpoena asked the full bench of the appeals court to review a lower court decision on the case. A notation in the legal docket said only nine of the court's 10 active judges participated — Judge Greg Katsas, the court's only Trump appointee and who had worked on the Russia probe while serving in the Trump White House, had recused himself. During his confirmation hearing, Katsas said he would take a broad view of his recusal obligations stemming from that experience.
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... Trump’s personal lawyers denied in early October that the president had anything to do with the case, and Trump himself insisted he wasn’t locked in any kind of subpoena battle with Mueller when pressed by reporters later that month.
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More than a dozen reporters lined up in the hallway outside the courtroom about an hour before the first of three cases were set to be argued before U.S. Court of Appeals Judges David Tatel, Thomas Griffith and Stephen Williams.
Reporters and members of the public were free to enter the courtroom during the first two cases. But the secrecy clampdown quickly followed as the court shifted gears to the sealed grand jury case. A security officer wearing blue rubber gloves checked the chambers for any devices left behind. The live audio feed went dead.
And then the clerk kicked the journalists off the entire fifth floor.
Reporters did their best to figure out what was going on, pooling resources and staking out prime spots where they might catch of glimpse of participants.
After about 90 minutes, court security officials allowed the journalists to return to the fifth-floor hallway, where the courtroom doors were still closed. A few minutes later, reporters spotted the judges walking back to their offices. No one with any apparent ties to the case were spotted leaving the building.
CNN:
No sign that it was Mueller's office. No sign of defense counsel. The courthouse security had ushered the lawyers into and out of the building for their secret hearing completely under cover. The sealed hearing stayed confidential.
And then, about 10 minutes after the court activity appeared to wrap for the day, a black Justice Department car rolled into Mueller's office building, bringing attorneys including Dreeben and Zainab Ahmad back to their home base.
Mystery Mueller mayhem at a Washington court (CNN)
There Was Drama At Court Today And Maybe It Involved Mueller’s Investigation But Who Knows (BuzzFeed News)
Reporters shooed away as mystery Mueller subpoena fight rages on (Politico)