Judge blocks release of Trump documents case report by special counsel Jack Smith

A Florida federal judge appointed by President Donald Trump blocked the public release of a final report by former special counsel Jack Smith on his prosecution of Trump for retaining classified documents after leaving the White House at his Mar-a-Lago club and for blocking efforts to retrieve them.

Judge Aileen Cannon, in her order, cited her July 2024 ruling that Smith was not legally appointed as special counsel, which led to her dismissing the criminal case against Trump, as the key reason she said that Volume II of his final report on the case should not be made public.

Smith had obtained a grand jury indictment of Trump on charges related to those documents in June 2023, more than two years after Trump ended his first term in the White House.

Cannon also on Monday rejected a request by Trump’s two co-defendants in the case to have Smith’s report destroyed.

In her order permanently blocking the release of that report, Cannon blasted Smith for his “brazen stratagem” of compiling evidence and other material obtained during his investigation and “compiling it into a final report” to the attorney general after she ruled his appointment as special counsel violated the appointments clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Smith had taken those actions while appealing the judge’s dismissal of the criminal case against Trump. The Department of Justice dropped that appeal after Trump won the 2024 presidential election.

Cannon, in her ruling Monday, said releasing Smith’s report “would cause irreparable damage to former defendants from disclosure of non-public” material that was exchanged between Smith’s prosecution team and defense lawyers, which involved “still-contested grand jury and privilege concerns.”

“And it would contravene basic notions of fairness and justice in the process, where no adjudication of guilt has been reached following initiation of criminal charges,” Cannon wrote in her order in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

In a curious footnote in her order on Monday, Cannon referenced the fact that her ruling blocking the release of Smith reports could be appealed and that her decision could be overturned by either the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court.

“As always, this Court will follow whatever mandates come from a higher court in resolving any future requests for judicial relief in this or any other case,” Cannon wrote.

Federal district court judges, as a rule, follow mandates from higher federal courts and do not typically take the time to affirm that practice in a written order.

Chioma Chukwu, executive director of American Oversight, in a statement said, “Judge Cannon’s ruling continues a troubling pattern of decisions that shield the president from public scrutiny and place secrecy above the public’s right to know.

“By permanently blocking the release of Volume II of the Special Counsel’s report and denying our effort to seek a stay while our appeal moves forward, the court has ensured that the public is denied information of extraordinary national importance,” Chukwu said. (Source: CNBC)