Justice Department appeals judge's order on Russia probe memo

The Biden administration said Monday that it would appeal a judge's order directing it to release in its entirety a legal memo on whether President Donald Trump had obstructed justice during the Russia investigation. But it also agreed to make a brief portion of the document public.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson earlier this month ordered the Justice Department to release the entire March 2019 memo as part of a public records lawsuit from a Washington-based advocacy organization. She said the department, under Attorney General William Barr, had misstated the purpose of the document in arguing that it was legally entitled to withhold it from the group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. In a motion filed late Monday, the deadline for deciding whether it would comply with the judge's decision or appeal it, the Justice Department said that it continued to believe even that the full document should be exempt from disclosure.