Judge Cannon Denies Trump Co-Defendant’s Motion to Continue to Block Jack Smith Report
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon denied a motion to continue to block the release of one of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s reports related to his indictments of President-elect Donald Trump.
Just Security’s Adam Klasfeld explained the ruling, writing on X, “Judge Cannon DENIES a motion by Trump’s co-defendants seeking to block the release of Jack Smith report’s first volume on election subversion case. She sets a hearing on Volume 2, which AG Garland didn’t plan to publicly release.”
Cannon had previously issued a temporary stay on the release of the reports, which expires on Monday. Klasfeld added, “As noted by Just Security’s co-editor in chief Ryan Goodman, Cannon wrote in a footnote that her prior injunction expires tonight at midnight. So unless a higher court rules otherwise, Volume 1 can go live starting then.”
Cannon also scheduled a hearing for January 17th to decided whether or not the second half of Smith’s report, covering his indictments regarding Trump’s retention of classified documents, can be made available for Congressional review.
ABC News explains the steps that led to Cannon’s Monday ruling. “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 classified documents volume,” wrote ABC, adding:
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 a filing overnight, 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.
Smith resigned from his role as special counsel over the weekend and has worked to wind down both cases ahead of Trump’s returning to office.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
