Jack Smith’s report into Donald Trump’s prosecution on charges that he tried to overturn the 2020 election could become public as soon as Tuesday after a federal judge denied a last-ditch attempt by the president-elect to stop it from being released.
The second volume of the report into Trump’s mishandling of classified documents will remain confidential unless the US district judge, Aileen Cannon, who oversaw that case in Florida, also allows that part to be released.
Whether that second part of the report will ever become public appears set to be decided after a hearing that Cannon scheduled for Friday in federal district court in Fort Pierce, Florida, according to her five-page decision.
The ruling was the latest twist in the behind-the-scenes maneuvering from Trump’s legal team, many of whom have been tapped to occupy top positions at the justice department when Trump returns next week to the White House, in a concerted effort to bury the report.
Special counsel reports typically generate immense interest given they are appointed to handle politically sensitive cases. They are initially confidential but the attorney general has the power to make them public. They also need to go to top lawmakers in Congress.
With both federal criminal cases against Trump dismissed after he won the election, due to longstanding department policy against prosecuting sitting presidents, the report would be the final chance for Smith – who has since resigned – to unveil new details and explain charging decisions for posterity.
Still, the amount of new information that will be in the report is unclear. Even if the entire report were released, there would be redactions, especially with the documents case, and prosecutors have laid out the accusations in great detail in the indictment and pre-trial filings.
The Trump legal team has nonetheless complained about the report becoming public on the basis that Cannon threw out the documents case after ruling that Smith had been improperly appointed as special counsel because he had not been confirmed to the role by the US Senate.
Trump’s former co-defendants in the documents case, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, also argued to Cannon that the release of the report that described criminal conspiracies would be harmful to their rights as defendants, given prosecutors are appealing the dismissal of the case against them.
Last week, Cannon issued an emergency injunction preventing the attorney general, Merrick Garland, and the rest of the justice department from releasing either part of the report until the US court of appeals for the 11th circuit ruled on the matter.
The 11th circuit rejected Nauta and De Oliveira’s arguments to impose a permanent injunction, which sent the matter back to Cannon at the lower court. Both men then asked Cannon for another injunction, which she granted for the documents case part but not for the 2020 election case.
