Judge Aileen Cannon isn’t done blocking and tackling for Donald Trump – especially blocking.

In a brief order today, a federal judge in Florida temporarily barred the Justice Department from releasing special counsel Jack Smith’s final report on his investigation into the president-elect. The order, issued at the request of Trump’s co-defendants, not only prevents the report from being released but also prohibits the DOJ from sharing it with other parts of the government. (Trump’s lawyers separately asked Attorney General Merrick Garland to block release of the report.)

Cannon, a Trump appointee, was randomly assigned to one of Smith’s cases in June 2023 – the case involving Trump’s hoarding of top-secret materials at Mar-a-Lago. Her handling of it confused and appalled many observers, some of whom accused her of “sabotaging” the case. In July, she dismissed the case, concluding that Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional overall. The Justice Department appealed her decision, but Smith moved to dismiss the matter after Trump won the presidential election.

David A. Graham: Critics feared Aileen Cannon was her

The firing was a bow to reality — U.S. Justice Department guidelines prevent the prosecution of a sitting president, and Trump had vowed to fire her and fire Smith anyway — but it also paved the way for Smith to release a report, in which he laid out his findings before Trump took office and buried it. Cannon’s ruling appears aimed at blocking the release of information related not only to the classified documents case, but also to a separate case involving Trump’s attempts to undermine the 2020 election. Smith asked a federal court in Washington, D.C. to dismiss that case even after Trump’s victory.

Cannon’s ruling is temporary and will expire once the Eleventh Circuit Court, which heard the DOJ’s appeal, rules. From one perspective, Cannon’s decision is reasonable: it simply maintains the status quo while the higher court decides. But analyzing her choice independently of her repeated decisions that help Trump is impossible. Their decision that Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional contradicted years of rulings on special counsel and surprised legal observers who had expected Trump’s argument to be quickly rejected.

This came after she had already handled the case slowly, allowing Trump to avoid trial in what was probably the most straightforward of the several criminal cases against him. Trump apparently took the documents, some of which contained the country’s most sensitive secrets. They were recovered at Mar-a-Lago by FBI agents, who found them haphazardly stacked in a restroom and on a ballroom stage, despite a subpoena issued by the Trump administration. But by dragging out the case and winning the election in November, Trump managed to scuttle it.

Now he would like to bury all of the damaging information Smith has collected — both in this case and in the election case. Releasing a report is standard practice for special counsel, but Trump is again trying to shorten the time. If he manages to delay the trial until January 20, when he becomes president, he may be able to permanently block any publication. For any other judge, this might seem like a pipe dream. But fortunately for Trump, Aileen Cannon is no different judge.