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The Justice Department told a federal appeals court Wednesday that Attorney General Merrick Garland intends to release special counsel Jack Smith’s final report, which relates to Jan. 6, before Donald Trump takes office.

However, Garland does not plan to publicly release the portion of Smith’s report on the investigation into Trump’s alleged misuse of classified documents, the Justice Department said, the first formal communication of the attorney general’s intentions.

The Justice Department asked the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to approve the plan.

“The Attorney General intends to consistently make Volume One available to Congress and the public … to further the public interest in informing a peer branch and the public about this important matter,” the DOJ said in a filing.

Currently, Garland is prevented from releasing portions of Smith’s report by a ruling by District Judge Aileen Cannon. The Justice Department is seeking to lift the injunction because it applies to the Jan. 6 portion of the report.

Cannon temporarily blocked the special counsel from releasing both volumes on Tuesday after Trump and his former co-defendants in the secret documents case, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, requested it. (Nauta and De Olivera have pleaded not guilty.)

Because the part about Nauta and De Oliveira will not be made public, the Justice Department told the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the two should not be allowed to prevent the rest of the report from being made public.

“There is neither a need nor a legal basis for an injunction,” the DOJ wrote in a filing with an appeals court on Wednesday. …But in order to avoid any risk of prejudice to defendants Nauta and De Oliveira, the Attorney General, on the recommendation of the Special Counsel, has decided that he will not publicly release Volume Two while the criminal cases against the defendants are still pending.”

CNN’s Hannah Rabinowitz contributed to this report.

This story has been updated with additional developments.