The U.S. Justice Department on Monday said in a court filing it would appeal a court decision faulting former U.S. Attorney General William Barr’s handling of the 2019 special counsel report on then-President Donald Trump, a move congressional Democrats had opposed.
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson had given the Justice Department until May 24 to appeal a decision she issued earlier this month that faulted Barr for how he publicly summarized Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s 2019 report.
As part of her ruling, she ordered the release of a related internal memo that Barr said he relied on in deciding how to handle the Mueller report.
The Justice Department said in Monday’s court filing that it would only appeal some aspects of Jackson’s May 3 ruling.
The department said it would not object to releasing an introductory section of the internal memo at issue in the case, while adding that the rest of the memo should not be made public as it related to a “decisional process”.
A group of U.S. Senate Democrats on May 14 urged U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland not to appeal Jackson’s decision, saying in a letter that Barr’s actions need to be exposed quickly.
