Merrick Garland plans to release Jack Smith’s January 6 report. How Trump is trying to stop him
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The special counsel handed in his final report days before Trump returns to the White House. The report is made up of two volumes: one includes Smith’s findings from a years-long probe into Trump’s efforts to reverse his election loss, and the other involves Trump’s handling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago compound.
![[Special counsel Jack Smith has dropped two federal criminal cases against the former president, but a highly anticipated report is expected to review his findings from years-long investigations beore Trump returns to the White House]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/08/17/2025-01-08T153821Z_1443454699_RC2AF2AD6JB8_RTRMADP_3_USA-TRUMP-DOCUMENTS.jpg)
But a court order from Trump-appointed District Judge Aileen Cannon temporarily blocks the entire report from being published while the parties make their arguments to a federal appeals court. Smith dropped Trump as a defendant in the Florida case, but his case against Trump’s longtime employees Waltine Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira could still go to trial. They have asked appellate judges to block Smith’s report from being published altogether.
![[Jack Smith’s two-volume report includes findings from his investigation into Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, culminating in a riot at the Capitol on January 6, 2021]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/08/18/a02d139d2c304606a4d1e250e50afbec.jpg)
Cannon’s order temporarily blocks the Justice Department from releasing both volumes, despite Nauta and De Oliveira having nothing to do with the special counsel’s January 6 case, which played out in an entirely different courtroom with a different judge in Washington, D.C.
Trump’s attorneys asked Cannon to block “any aspect” of Smith’s report, which “would result in irreparable harm” against him, if released, they wrote. They argued that the election interference case “pertained to a time period” when Nauta and De Oliveira were Trump’s employees, and releasing that report would be “inconsistent with the presumption of innocence” against them and a long list of other Trump allies.
