Justice Department can publish Jack Smith report on Trump’s election interference case, judge rules
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The special counsel resigned after submitting his two-volume report days before Trump returns to office. After a last-minute legal battle, Jack Smith’s final report on his criminal investigation into Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election is one step closer to becoming public.
Her decision clears the way for Attorney General Merrick Garland to partially publicly release Smith’s report once her initial three-day injunction expires at midnight Monday — less than a week before Trump returns to the White House. Last week, the Trump-appointed federal judge temporarily blocked both volumes of Smith’s report from the public, including the results of his investigation into Trump’s election subversion — a case that played out in an entirely different court in Washington, D.C.
Garland had vowed to release the Mar-a-Lago report to top members of Congress while publicly releasing the volume on Trump’s election case, with only days left to spare before Trump’s inauguration on January 20, when he can stop both volumes from ever being released.
Smith — the former Hague prosecutor who was appointed as special counsel to oversee the two federal criminal cases against the president-elect — turned in his final two-volume report to Garland last week. He resigned from the Justice Department on Friday.
Cannon will hold a hearing on January 17 to determine whether the members of Congress can review the Mar-a-Lago report. In a shock decision last year, Judge Cannon dismissed the Mar-a-Lago case after agreeing with Trump’s attorneys that Smith was unconstitutionally appointed and funded. Smith’s team appealed that decision, but then dropped Trump as a defendant after his election. The case against his co-defendants Waltine Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira is ongoing.
