The US Department of Justice (DOJ) requested on Thursday that the Supreme Court block the release of grand jury documents associated with special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election.

In its application for a stay, the DOJ said that without the Supreme Court’s grant of a stay, “the government will have to disclose [the previously redacted grand jury documents, as well as the underlying grand jury transcripts and exhibits] on May 11, 2020, which would irrevocably lift their secrecy and possibly frustrate the government’s ability to seek further review.”

The crux of this case is whether impeachment is a “judicial proceeding.” This application for a temporary stay comes to the Supreme Court after the district court and the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said that the Senate impeachment trial is a “judicial proceeding” for which grand jury secrecy may be breached. The DOJ says that the lower courts relied upon an exception of grand jury secrecy that allows courts to authorize disclosure “preliminarily to or in connection with a judicial proceeding.” The DOJ argues that that exception is “not a ‘clear indication’ that grand-jury secrecy may be breached preliminarily to or in connection with an impeachment proceeding.”

The DOJ makes several arguments to support its case. First, it states that the appeals court’s interpretation creates a contradiction within the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and expands the limited nature of grand jury secrecy. Second, the DOJ says it raises constitutional issues because the court would likely not use a similar provision against the House or Senate because it would be inconsistent with the Speech and Debate Clause of Article I. Additionally, the DOJ says that the allowance of the grand jury documents would create issues with the ordinary requirement to demonstrate a particularized need for the materials. To this point, the DOJ says that the court of appeals “fashioned a lower impeachment-specific standard that requires a House of Congress merely to show that the requested materials may be ‘relevant’ to impeachment … in contravention of this Court’s precedents rejecting a ‘relevance’ standard.”

The DOJ says that if the documents are released there will be irreparable harm done to the government because the grand jury “secrecy will irrevocably be lost.” In this case, if the documents are released to a congressional committee and its staff, it would only take a majority vote for the documents to be released to the public.

With the government required to release the documents on Monday, May 11, the Supreme Court is expected to provide its response quickly.