Judge denies Trump's last-ditch effort to block midnight release of Jack Smith's final report
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon denied President-elect Donald Trump's eleventh-hour effort to delay the release of special counsel Jack Smith's final report detailing Trump's alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election, clearing the way for the report's release early Tuesday morning.
Attorneys for Trump had made a last-ditch effort to prevent the release of Volume One of the two-part report, roughly two hours before Cannon's injunction barring the Justice Department from releasing the volume was set to expire on Monday night at midnight ET.
Cannon, who dismissed Trump's classified documents case, ruled Monday afternoon that the Justice Department could publicly release Volume One, covering Smith's election interference case against Trump -- but reserved ruling on whether the DOJ can make Volume Two, on Smith's classified documents probe, available to congressional leadership for review.
Cannon has scheduled a hearing on that matter for Jan. 17, three days before Trump's inauguration.
Trump's legal team on Monday night asked Cannon to extend her injunction prohibiting the report's release until they could appear in court and argue their case directly to her at that hearing.
"Never before in our Nation's history has the Department of Justice attempted to interfere with an incoming Presidential administration in this manner, let alone on the very eve of inauguration by means of a false report issued by a discredited prosecutor who has now resigned in disgrace," the filing said. "Nor should the Court permit the Department to do so until providing President Trump a full and fair opportunity to be heard on these enormously consequential questions."
In response, the Justice Department urged Judge Cannon in a filing to reject Trump's request to extend her injunction.
"President-elect Trump is not a party to this action and therefore cannot seek injunctive relief," the DOJ said in their response filing, filed less than an hour before midnight. "He has no right to participate in this action in order to seek relief relating to a volume of the Special Counsel’s Final Report that has nothing to do with this case—much less to seek that relief after this Court already denied it to the actual parties to the case."
Trump's attorneys argued in their filing that Cannon should grant their request because she has still not yet ruled on their previous motion to intervene in the case, and they list a host of previously raised grievances that they say show Smith has "already abused his office to engage in an egregious series of public attacks on President Trump."
Cannon last week issued an injunction temporarily blocking the release of the entire report -- both the first volume on the Jan. 6 case and the second volume on the classified documents case -- as the Justice Department appeared poised to publicly release the report. Attorney General Merrick Garland had vowed to release the classified documents volume to top members of Congress and to publicly release the election interference volume.
Trump's former co-defendants in his classified documents case, longtime aide Walt Nauta and staffer Carlos De Oliveira, had sought to block the release of both reports, but the DOJ attested in a filing over the weekend that Volume One has has no bearing on the evidence or charges related Nauta and De Oliveira in their ongoing case.
In a filing Sunday night, prior to Cannon's ruling, lawyers for Nauta and De Oliveira again asked Cannon to extend her order blocking the release of Smith's entire final report and to hold a hearing about permanently prohibiting the report's release.
"The Government, driven by political priorities that have no place in a criminal trial setting, seeks to strong-arm its way through this orderly process and has repeatedly failed to abide by established rules and procedure," the lawyers wrote.
While Cannon previously deemed that Smith was unconstitutionally appointed special counsel -- and dismissed Trump's classified documents case on that basis -- her reasoning on that matter is "confined" to the classified documents case and is "insufficient" to block the volume related to the former president's efforts to overturn the 2020 election, she wrote in her Monday's five-page order.
Regarding the release of the classified documents volume of the report, Cannon wrote that even limiting its release to leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees "risks irreversibly and substantially impairing the legal rights of Defendants in this criminal proceeding," after lawyers for Trump's former co-defendants had argued that members of Congress could leak the report and harm their clients.
Trump pleaded not guilty in 2023 to 40 criminal counts related to his handling of classified materials after leaving the White House, after prosecutors said he repeatedly refused to return hundreds of documents containing classified information and took steps to thwart the government's efforts to retrieve them from his Mar-a-Lago estate. The former president, along with Nauta and De Oliveira, pleaded not guilty in a superseding indictment to allegedly attempting to delete surveillance footage at Mar-a-Lago.
Trump also pleaded not guilty in 2023 to separate charges of undertaking a "criminal scheme" to overturn the results of the 2020 election in an effort to subvert democracy and remain in power.
Both cases were dropped following Trump's reelection in November due to a longstanding Justice Department policy prohibiting the prosecution of a sitting president.
Smith resigned as special prosecutor on Friday after wrapping up the cases and submitting his report to Garland.
In a separate case, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, who in April indicted 11 individuals, including Trump allies Rudy Giuliani and Mark Meadows, on charges of attempting to overturn the 2020 election results in her state, wrote to Garland on Sunday requesting access to Smith's case file in his Jan. 6 probe in order to "help ensure that those who should be held accountable are."
"Today, my office has one of the only remaining cases that includes charges against national actors," her letter said. "I have held steadfast to prosecuting the grand jury's indictment because those who tried to subvert democracy in 2020 must be held accountable."
The letter also asked the DOJ for any "exculpatory material" unearthed in the probe.
It also referenced a recent order from a state judge that granted a request from Meadows for discovery in the case to help aid in his defense. The letter, though, acknowledges that the state judge "cannot compel disclosure from a federal agency."
"For the reasons discussed above, the Maricopa County Superior Court's order should be fulfilled. In the alternative, consider this a request under the Freedom of Information Act," the letter states. "Disclosure will ensure justice is done consistent with the rule of law."
