The Supreme Court could now decide as early as Wednesday afternoon whether an unnamed foreign-owned company will have to pay daily fines for avoiding a grand jury subpoena related to Robert Mueller's special counsel investigation.
The company submitted a reply under seal to the Supreme Court earlier today, following written arguments it and the Justice Department made last week.
The filing Wednesday tees up a vote by the full Supreme Court.
The company has been trying to avoid a subpoena from a DC-based grand jury, and faced court-imposed fines for every day it did not turn over information.
After losing at an appeals court, the company took its challenge to the Supreme Court and asked for a freeze on the mounting penalties.
Chief Justice John Roberts allowed it a temporary pause last month, but the full court is now expected to weigh in on whether the freeze should stay in place.
A denial from the court would be an apparent win for Mueller's team.
Grand jury matters in the federal court system are typically kept secret, unless a witness decides to speak about the subpoenas they receive or their experience testifying.
However, the case has still been one of the most secretive in years to progress through the court system.
It apparently included two face-offs between special counsel office prosecutors and the unnamed company's private attorneys.
After losing at the trial level, the DC Circuit Court closed a floor of the courthouse during appellate arguments to keep the identities of the arguing attorneys completely under wraps.
The company has kept nearly all its filings secret -- with the exception of a log of when it submits information to the appeals courts.
Though the Supreme Court allows for cases like this to be secret in their early requests, the high court has never heard a known case where all parties and arguments stayed confidential.
