Cannon Temporarily Blocks Release Of Jack Smith Report

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has temporarily blocked the Justice Department from releasing special counsel Jack Smith’s final report on his two criminal investigations into Donald Trump.

The extraordinary move, coming just days before Smith’s office is expected to shut down, scrambles the final stage of the special counsel’s work. Smith is expected to wrap up and deliver to Attorney General Merrick Garland a final report laying out the results of his probes into Trump’s handling of classified documents after he left office in 2021 and his attempt to subvert the 2020 election. Garland has said he would release the report publicly in some form.

But Cannon’s order, issued at the request of two Trump allies who were co-defendants in the classified documents case, bars the Justice Department from releasing the report or any portion of it until three days after a federal appeals court rules on the issue.

The order bars Garland, the Justice Department, Smith and “all of their officers, agents, and employees, and all persons acting in active concert or participation with such individuals” from “releasing, sharing, or transmitting the Final Report or any drafts of such Report outside the Department of Justice.”

Cannon’s order does not apply to Trump or his co-defendants, even though Smith contends they inappropriately revealed aspects of the report — which they have reviewed in recent days — in a Monday court filing. In that filing, Trump revealed Smith described him as “engaged in an unprecedented criminal effort,” as “the head of the criminal conspiracies” and said he harbored a “criminal design.”

Cannon, a Trump appointee, threw out Smith’s prosecution of Trump and the two co-defendants last July after concluding that Garland’s appointment of Smith was illegal. The Justice Department appealed that ruling, but dropped the part of the appeal pertaining to Trump in November. But the appeal seeking to reinstate charges against the two Trump allies remains pending, raising doubts about Cannon’s authority to act in the case.

A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment on the judge’s order but pointed to a court filing early Tuesday in which DOJ promised the report would not be released before Friday at the earliest.