WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department may publicly release special counsel Jack Smith investigative report on President-elect Donald Trump 2020 election interference casea federal judge said Monday in the latest ruling in a legal dispute over the highly anticipated document days before Trump reclaims the White House.
But a temporary injunction barring immediate release of the report remains in effect until Tuesday, and U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s order is unlikely to be the final word on the matter. Defense lawyers could seek to challenge the decision all the way to the Supreme Court.
Cannon, who was appointed to the bench by Trump, previously temporarily blocked the department from releasing the full report on Smith’s investigations into Trump that led to two separate criminal cases. Cannon’s latest order Monday cleared the way for the release of the volume detailing Smith’s case that accused Trump, a Republican, of conspiring to overturn the law. his 2020 electoral defeat to Joe Biden, a Democrat.
She set a hearing for Friday on whether the department can give lawmakers a separate volume on the case. who accused Trump of hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate after leaving the White House in 2021. The department said he will not disclose it publicly this volume while criminal proceedings against two of Trump’s co-defendants remain ongoing.
Cannon dismissed the classified documents case in July, ruling that Smith’s appointment was illegal. The Justice Department dropped both cases after Trump’s presidential victory in November, citing department policy that prohibits federal prosecutions of sitting presidents.
Smith resigned from his position Friday after forwarding his report to Attorney General Merrick Garland, the Justice Department revealed in a footnote in a court filing over the weekend.
Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement that it was “time for Joe Biden and Merrick Garland to do the right thing and end the political militarization of our justice system.”
Monday’s ruling, if upheld, could open the door for the public to get additional details in the coming days about Trump’s frantic but ultimately unsuccessful efforts to cling to power in the run-up to the presidential election. the deadly insurrection of January 6, 2021 at the Capitol.
But it could also lead to the volume of classified documents being shelved for the long term, as the Trump administration’s Justice Department is highly unlikely to make them public.
Lawyers for the Republican president-elect’s two co-defendants, Trump valet Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira, had argued that releasing the report would harm them given ongoing criminal proceedings against them in the form of a Justice Department appeal of Cannon’s dismissal of the charges.
As a compromise, the Justice Department said it would not make this document public while these proceedings continue, but instead would share it with certain congressional officials for their private review. But Cannon scrapped those plans and scheduled a hearing for Friday afternoon.
“The release of Volume II, even on a limited basis as promised by the United States, risks irreversibly and substantially harming the legal rights of the defendants in these criminal proceedings,” Cannon wrote.
“The Court is not willing to make this gamble based on the widespread interest of Members of Congress, at least not without a full briefing and hearing on the subject,” she added. “Nor has the United States presented any justification to support the suggestion that Volume II should be released to Congress now, rather than after a reasonable time for an expedited hearing and judicial deliberation on the subject. »
