U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who dismissed Donald Trump’s classified documents case, has ruled that the Justice Department can publicly release Volume One of special counsel Jack Smith’s report, covering his election interference case against Trump — but is reserving ruling on whether the DOJ can make Volume Two, on the classified documents case, available to congressional leadership for review.
Cannon has scheduled a hearing on that matter for Jan. 17, three days before Trump’s inauguration.
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.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the media after voting at a polling station setup in the Morton and Barbara Mandel Recreation Center, Mar. 19, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
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 overnight, 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.
Cannon’s ruling permitting the release of the report’s Jan. 6 volume appears to leave in place her original three-day injunction, which expires tonight at midnight.
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.
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, told Garland in a letter Sunday that gaining access to Smith’s case file in his Jan. 6 probe will “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,” the 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.”
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 dismissed 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.