Robert Mueller’s secret appeals court case takes surreal Supreme Court turn

| 10:53 pm EST December 23, 2018
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Yesterday we all learned that the master company in Robert Mueller’s secret appeals court case was attempting to get the Supreme Court involved. Now it turns out the Supreme Court has gotten involved, at least preliminarily, and it’s set things on a very quick timetable for a potential resolution. There are also some surreal revelations surfacing about what really went on at the appeals court level.

Chief Justice John Roberts has decided to put a hold on the appeals court ruling, but only through December 31st, so that the Supreme Court can review the matter and decide whether to take it up, according to CNN. This is not a surprise, given the unique importance of the case, which has led to unprecedented levels of secrecy. So what now?

This is not an indication that Roberts thinks the mystery company has a valid case, or that he thinks the Supreme Court should even hear the matter. It simply means that he considers it important enough to give the court the option of taking on the case. What’s remarkable here is that Roberts has also placed an eight day hold on the contempt citation that the mystery company has hanging over it. Wait a minute, what contempt citation?

Therein lies the mystery. This company’s failure to cooperate has prompted a judge to hold it in contempt and begin hitting it with monetary fines, in an effort to force it to cooperate. This tells us that this has been a far uglier battle than we imagined, and that the company has gone to greater lengths to dodge this subpoena than we knew.

Even though there are five conservative Supreme Court Justices, this is not an ideological matter. It’s a matter of interpreting the extent to which a foreign government-owned corporation, which presumably does business in the United States, must abide by legal proceedings in U.S. courts. We don’t know how the Supreme Court will rule on this, if it even takes up the case. But Robert Mueller nearly always wins his court battles. And if the Supreme Court sides with Mueller, he could very soon be getting the evidence he’s been trying to subpoena.