WASHINGTON — A federal judge has temporarily blocked the release of special counsel Jack Smith’s report on investigations into President-elect Donald Trump as an appeals court weighs a challenge.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon issued her ruling Tuesday, a day after defense attorneys filed an emergency request to block the Justice Department from making the report public — a move Smith said could come from Friday.
The case is currently being heard by the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
THIS IS A LATEST UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
WASHINGTON — Special counsel Jack Smith said Tuesday that his team is finalizing a two-volume report on its investigations of President-elect Donald Trump and that at least one volume could be released by the Justice Department as soon as Friday.
The disclosure follows a request by defense attorneys, filed in court and in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, to preemptively block release of the report.
The report is expected to outline charging decisions made in separate investigations led by Smith into Trump’s hoarding of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate and his efforts to overturn the results of the presidential election in 2020 as January 6 approaches. , 2021, riot at the US Capitol.
Trump was indicted alongside two co-defendants in the classified documents case, which was dismissed in July by a Trump-appointed judge who found Smith’s appointment was illegal. Trump was also indicted in an election interference case that was significantly narrowed by a Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity.
Smith’s team dropped both cases in November after Trump’s presidential victory, citing Justice Department policy that bars federal prosecutions of sitting presidents.
Trump’s lawyers, including Todd Blanche, who was chosen by Trump to become his deputy attorney general, urged Garland in a letter made public Monday evening to block the release of the report and remove Smith from his post “promptly” – or please postpone the publication of the report to the new attorney general.
Using language that mimicked Trump’s own attacks on Smith and his work, Blanche told Garland that “the release of any confidential report prepared by this out-of-control private citizen unconstitutionally posing as a prosecutor would be nothing more than a lawless political stunt, designed to politically damage President Trump and justify the enormous sums of taxpayer money that Smith unconstitutionally spent on his failed and rejected cases.
The letter was attached to an exhibit in an emergency request filed Monday evening in federal court by lawyers for Trump’s co-defendants in the documents case, Trump valet Walt Nauta and Mar- a-Lago Carlos De Oliveira. They asked U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon to block the report’s release, noting that Smith’s appeal of her dismissal of the charges against the men is still pending and that releasing derogatory information about them would be detrimental.
In response to that request, Smith’s team said in a two-page document Tuesday that it intended to submit its report to Garland that afternoon and that the volume relating to the investigation into Classified documents would not be made public until 10 a.m. Friday. It is assumed that both volumes of the Smith Report would be released simultaneously.
Justice Department regulations require special attorneys appointed by the attorney general to submit a confidential report at the conclusion of their investigations.
Garland has so far made public the full reports produced by the special advisers who operated under his direction, including Robert Hur’s report on President Joe Biden’s handling of classified information and John Durham’s report on the FBI investigation into Russian election interference.
washingtontimes