Court Opinion

ID: 9962247
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-04-23 14:01:00.888486+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:20:09.316381
License: Public Domain

United States Court of Appeals
                           FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

No. 23-5073                                                  September Term, 2023
                                                              FILED ON: APRIL 23, 2024

IN RE: PRESS APPLICATION FOR ACCESS TO JUDICIAL RECORDS AND PROCEEDINGS ANCILLARY TO
CERTAIN GRAND JURY PROCEEDINGS CONCERNING DONALD J. TRUMP AND THE TRUMP
ORGANIZATION,

BLOOMBERG L.P., ET AL.,
                    APPELLANTS

v.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                   APPELLEE

                          Appeal from the United States District Court
                                  for the District of Columbia
                                      (No. 1:22-mc-00128)

       Before: MILLETT, WALKER and GARCIA, Circuit Judges

                                       JUDGMENT
        This case was considered on the record from the United States District Court for the
District of Columbia, and on the briefs of the parties. See FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2); D.C. CIR. R.
34(j). The Court has afforded the issues full consideration and has determined that they do not
warrant a published opinion. See FED. R. APP. P. 36; D.C. CIR. R. 36(d). It is
        ORDERED AND ADJUDGED that the order of the United States District Court for the
District of Columbia be AFFIRMED.
                                                I
       This case concerns certain press organizations’ request for records relating to grand jury
proceedings involving former President Trump. The district court denied the request in full,
explaining that releasing the records would violate Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e)’s
requirement that all matters occurring before a grand jury may not be disclosed unless certain
exceptions apply. The appellants in this case do not directly argue that Rule 6(e) is inapplicable

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or that one of its enumerated exceptions applies. Instead, they raise three critiques focusing
primarily on the district court’s mode of analysis. We explain in detail why those arguments do
not warrant reversal in our judgment in In re New York Times, No. 23-5071 (D.C. Cir April 23,
2024), a related case which involves materially indistinguishable arguments presented by the
same counsel. This judgment explains the factual context of this case and briefly recapitulates
our basis for rejecting those arguments.
                                                II
        On May 11, 2022, a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia issued a subpoena to
the Office of Donald J. Trump seeking documents bearing classification markings. On August
8, 2022, federal investigators executed a search warrant at the Mar-a-Lago Club, a property
owned by former President Trump, who soon thereafter initiated a lawsuit in Florida relating to
that search. In August 2022 filings in that lawsuit, the government publicly acknowledged the
subpoena and filed a copy on the public docket. The government also explained that “it had
obtained and executed the search warrant after developing probable cause that the Office’s initial
response to that subpoena was incomplete and that obstruction had occurred.” Gov’t Br. 4–5.
The government’s disclosure of the existence of the grand jury subpoena was made with
permission of the district court.
        Appellants are Bloomberg L.P., Cable News Network, Inc., The E.W. Scripps Company,
POLITICO LLC, and WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post. On December 15, 2022,
they filed a petition in district court seeking access to “certain judicial records” stemming from
the grand jury proceedings. JA 4. Relying on media reports, appellants claimed that “the
Government had urged [the district court] to hold Trump’s office in contempt over its response
to the Subpoena, and that a hearing on that request was set for . . . December 9.” JA 16
(quotations omitted). They asked the district court to grant them “access to all motions,
memoranda, exhibits, opinions, orders, hearings, hearing transcripts, and other judicial records
related to the Government’s request to hold former President Trump or his representatives in
contempt” for failure to comply with the grand jury subpoena. JA 4.
         On March 11, 2023, the district court denied the petition in full. In re Press Application
for Access to Jud. Recs. & Procs., No. 22 Misc. 128 (BAH), 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 104648
(D.D.C. Mar. 11, 2023). It relied on Rule 6(e)(6)’s requirement that “[r]ecords, orders, and
subpoenas relating to grand-jury proceedings . . . be kept under seal to the extent and as long as
necessary to prevent the unauthorized disclosure of a matter occurring before a grand jury.” It
further explained that disclosing whether the government sought to hold former President Trump
in contempt would necessarily reveal “a matter occurring before a grand jury,” because “that
request would have been part of an effort to secure compliance with the grand jury Subpoena.”
Id. at *6. Relatedly, the district court concluded that appellants failed to demonstrate that
redacted versions of any relevant documents could be disclosed without compromising the
secrecy of any contempt proceedings. Id. And it rejected appellants’ contention that the
requested records lost their protected character when the government disclosed the existence of
the subpoena itself, because the government’s disclosure said nothing about “the details of
ancillary proceedings relating to the government’s efforts to enforce, and the former president’s
efforts to comply[] with[,] the Subpoena.” Id. at *5–6.
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                                                III
        The district court in this case relied largely on its earlier decision in In re New York
Times, 657 F. Supp. 3d 136 (D.D.C. 2023). That decision is the one that—as referenced at the
outset—is also the subject of an appeal before this panel and is addressed in a separate judgment
issued today. That judgment provides more detail on the scope of Rule 6(e) and its exceptions.
For present purposes, it suffices to say that the district court properly determined that Rule 6(e)
prohibits disclosure of the documents sought in this case: As the district court explained, it
could not disclose documents—even redacted documents—related to any contempt proceedings
without “invariably and consistently touch[ing] on ‘matters occurring before the grand jury’ that
have not been revealed to the public through authoritative disclosures.” In re Press Application,
2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 104648, at *7. Indeed, on appeal, appellants offer no direct challenge to
that analysis, nor do they argue that any of the listed exceptions to Rule 6(e) applies.
        Instead, appellants raise three critiques of the district court’s decision. According to
appellants, the district court (1) “deferred excessively” to the government on what judicial
records “it could and should release,” Appellants Reply Br. 1; see Appellants Br. 21–25, (2)
mistakenly concluded that “it should seal records more comprehensively in cases such as this one
where the public interest is heightened and the press has reported on the proceedings,”
Appellants Reply Br. 1; see Appellants Br. 25–29, and (3) erred by failing to consider arguments
relating to the press’s First Amendment rights, Appellants Br. 29–36.
         The appellants in In re New York Times are represented by the same counsel and raised
these same three arguments. We explain in detail in our judgment in that case why these
“arguments are wrong or forfeited.” No. 23-5071 at 5. We adopt that analysis, which applies
squarely to this case. In brief, the first two arguments concern observations the district court
made in its order but which “had no relevant effect on its proper disposition of this case.” Id.
Neither argument changes the dispositive fact that disclosing documents in response to a request
for documents about contempt proceedings would reveal whether a contempt proceeding took
place. And we do not address appellants’ First Amendment argument because they “did not
raise it before the district court.” Id.
        There is one material difference between this appeal and In re New York Times, which
explains why in that case we have vacated the district court’s order and remanded for further
proceedings, whereas here we affirm. The appellants there claim that, after the district court
ruled, the government made a public disclosure about the grand jury proceedings that could
affect Rule 6(e)’s application to the records sought in that case. We accordingly vacate and
remand the In re New York Times order for reconsideration in light of that disclosure, even
though the “district court’s decision was correct on the record before it.” Id. at 3. Here,
appellants claim no equivalent post-decision disclosure by the government.
                                               ***
       For the foregoing reasons, the order of the district court is affirmed.

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        Pursuant to D.C. Circuit Rule 36, this disposition will not be published. The Clerk is
directed to withhold issuance of the mandate until seven days after resolution of any timely
petition for rehearing or rehearing en banc. See FED. R. APP. P. 41(b); D.C. CIR. R. 41(a)(1).
                                          Per Curiam

                                                            FOR THE COURT:
                                                            Mark J. Langer, Clerk

                                                    BY:     /s/
                                                            Daniel J. Reidy
                                                            Deputy Clerk

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