U.S. Capitol building. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM

A three judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Tuesday granted an administrative stay on a district court order requiring the release of grand jury information from the Mueller report to House Democrats.

In a one-page order, Judges Patricia Millett, Cornelia Pillard and Robert Wilkins granted an administrative stay as they consider the Department of Justice's motion for an emergency stay, hours before U.S. Chief District Judge Beryl Howell's order on the release of materials would have gone into effect.

"The purpose of this administrative stay is to give the court sufficient opportunity to consider the motion," the order states, "and should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits of that motion."

Department of Justice attorneys first asked for the stay Monday, days after Howell ruled the agency must hand over grand jury material redacted from special counsel Robert Mueller's report to the House Judiciary Committee by Oct. 30.

In the filing in Howell's court, the government attorneys argued they would be "irreparably harmed" if they had to give the grand jury information to the House committee without having a chance to appeal the case to the D.C. Circuit.

And they claimed that the information detailed in the Mueller report "is not the current focus of impeachment inquiry."

DOJ lawyers repeated that argument in another filing with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit later Monday. They asked that court to grant them a stay as they prepare to appeal Howell's ruling, or "enter an administrative stay, or continue such a stay, for a reasonable period to allow the Solicitor General an opportunity to seek relief from the Supreme Court."

House attorneys, who have argued the grand jury information is crucial in determining whether to approve articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, swatted back in a court filing Tuesday.

"DOJ is wrong about the scope of the House's inquiry: as the Committee confirmed at oral argument, 'it's not just Ukraine that's the focus,'" House attorneys wrote.

And they argued that further delaying their access to the information "would impair the public's interest in an efficient, fair impeachment process based on all of the relevant evidence."

The motion for a stay will now be briefed further in the D.C. Circuit, but on a tight timeline. The judges asked the House to file a response to a motion by Friday, and DOJ to offer any reply by the following Tuesday.

Howell, in a ruling last week, rejected DOJ's argument that the impeachment inquiry was not a judicial proceeding and that it could not be accepted as legitimate because the House hadn't voted to authorize the proceedings.

"The need for continued secrecy is minimal and thus easily outweighed by [House Judiciary Committee's] compelling need for the material," Howell wrote. "Tipping the scale even further toward disclosure is the public's interest in a diligent and thorough investigation into, and in a final determination about, potentially impeachable conduct by the president described in the Mueller Report."

House Democrats have seized on Howell's ruling to rebuke Republican claims that the impeachment inquiry is illegitimate.

Democrats on Tuesday also introduced a resolution on how their impeachment inquiry will be conducted as it goes public, including the release of certain evidence and how lawmakers can question witnesses during televised hearings.

Among other items in the resolution, it allows for the chair and ranking members of the House Intelligence Committee—Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff and GOP Rep. Devin Nunes—to tap committee counsel to question witnesses for up to 90 minutes at the start of a hearing. That time is to be divided evenly between the two members.

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