Judge Aileen Cannon blocks the release of special counsel Jack Smith’s final report on the Trump investigation

Judge Aileen Cannon blocks the release of special counsel Jack Smith’s final report on the Trump investigation



CNN

District Judge Aileen Cannon on Tuesday blocked the release of special counsel Jack Smith’s final report on his investigation into President-elect Donald Trump.

Her order blocks Smith and the Justice Department from proceeding with the release of the report until the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has time to consider an emergency request from Trump’s co-defendants to block the report’s release.

The move comes amid a flurry of legal filings Monday evening and Tuesday. Lawyers for Trump have reviewed a draft of Smith’s final report related to the federal investigation into the president-elect, according to a letter included in court filings from Trump’s former co-defendants Monday evening.

In the filing, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira called on Cannon to block the release of the special counsel’s report, which is expected in the coming days before Trump is sworn in as president for a second time. The two men, who both worked for Trump and have pleaded not guilty to obstruction-related crimes, argued that Smith did not have the authority to release the report because Cannon had previously ruled his appointment as special counsel was unlawful . (The 11th Circuit is also currently considering the DOJ’s appeal of this ruling.)

Cannon was appointed by Trump during his first term.

Her brief order blocking the Justice Department on Tuesday made no distinction between the two volumes allegedly contained in Smith’s report – one dealing with the investigation into misuse of classified documents and the other dealing with the investigation into election interference Year 2020. Trump’s lawyers said the arguments against releasing the report applied to both volumes, pointing in part to the overlap of evidence.

The documents included a letter from Trump’s lawyers to Attorney General Merrick Garland in which they made similar arguments and said they were permitted to “review the two-volume draft report in a conference room in Smith’s office between January 3 and January 6, 2025.” . The lawyers, two of whom were chosen by Trump for top positions in the new administration’s Justice Department, asked for advance notice of the report’s release so they can “take appropriate legal action.”

In court filings, defense attorneys said the government allowed them a “limited” review of the draft over the weekend and that it “revealed a one-sided narrative arguing that the defendants committed the crimes charged in this case.”

Garland has told Congress that he plans to make the report available to lawmakers to allow for redactions required under Justice Department guidelines. That would mean the Justice Department would likely redact portions of the report related to the two co-defendants, since the department is seeking to pursue those cases and is prohibited from interfering with their potential trials.

In a separate filing in court overnight, Smith’s office further detailed the timeline for completing the report. The special counsel’s office said it would deliver the report to the attorney general no earlier than 1 p.m. ET on Tuesday, and the attorney general would release it at the earliest publish on Friday morning.

“The Attorney General has not yet determined how to handle the volume of reporting related to this case that the parties were discussing at the time defendants filed the motion,” Smith’s team wrote.

Federal regulations governing the work of the special counsel at the Justice Department place decisions about releasing such reports in the hands of the attorney general.

The office added that it planned to provide Cannon with more information about his position on Tuesday evening.

But defense attorneys expressed dissatisfaction in filings Monday with the level of redactions in the draft they reviewed.

The fast-moving dispute comes less than two weeks before Trump’s inauguration. At that point, his Justice Department — led largely by representatives of his criminal defense team in the case before Cannon — will take charge of the investigation. The attempt to block the release of the report is Trump’s latest attack on the institution of special counsel.

The defense teams’ efforts also came after special counsel Robert Hur, John Durham and Robert Mueller recently completed reports that were released to the public without much opposition on criminal cases they had indicted or rejected in the cases of Trump and Joe Biden .

While Cannon dismissed the case against her and Trump over the summer, the Justice Department is appealing her decision that Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional. Trump himself was removed from the case after his re-election last year at the request of prosecutors, but the prosecution against Nauta and De Oliveira was turned over to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in South Florida.

Nauta and De Oliveira raised the possibility that prosecutions against them could be reopened, arguing Monday that the release of the report would “irretrievably and irrevocably” disadvantage them as defendants. They also noted that the protective order limiting their ability to testify about discovery provided to them by the government remains in effect.

Because the defendants are “strictly prohibited from refuting the report,” publishing it would make it “even more unfairly prejudicial,” they said.

“The final report is intended to serve as the government’s verdict against the defendants and contravenes all criminal justice standards and constitutional guideposts,” they argued to the judge.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

CNN’s Evan Perez contributed to this report.

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