‘Terminate All Efforts’: Trump Team Bitterly Attacked Jack Smith In Last-Ditch Demand To Kill Jan 6 Report

L: Yuki Iwamura/Pool Photo via AP- R: AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana

President-elect Donald Trump’s legal team bitterly attacked then-Special Counsel Jack Smith in a last-ditch attempt to make him “terminate all efforts” to release his report on the events surrounding the January 6 Capitol riot.

After heated last-minute legal wrangling with Trump, the J6 half of Smith’s report was released Tuesday morning, while a volume covering the classified documents case will be held pending an appeal by former Trump co-defendants Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira.

The report contains damning conclusions from Smith, including that Trump would be convicted of crimes if not for his victory in the 2024 election.

But the release also includes a lengthy letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland from Trump’s attorneys — dated January 6, 2025 — seeking to block the report.

In the introductory paragraph, Trump attorney Todd Blanche claims “complete exoneration” for Trump and accuses Smith of carrying out a “crusade” on “behalf of the Biden-Harris Administration”:

Dear Attorney General Garland:

We write on behalf of President Trump to demand that Smith terminate all efforts toward the preparation and release of this report (the “Draft Report”).

As you know, Courts in Florida and the District of Columbia have now dismissed both of Jack Smith’s failed cases against President Trump. Rather than acknowledging, as he must, President Trump’s complete exoneration, Smith now seeks to disseminate an extrajudicial “Final Report” to perpetuate his false and discredited accusations. Consistent with the bad-faith crusade that Smith executed on behalf of the Biden-Harris Administration from the moment he was appointed, we were only permitted to review the Draft Report in person in the District of Columbia, including prohibitions on the use of any outside electronic devices in the room where the Draft Report was made available. Smith’s team likewise demanded, in advance of any review, that we delete prior discovery productions, preventing us from reviewing any of those underlying documents cited in the Draft Report. Nevertheless, it is clear, as has been the case with so many of the other actions of Smith and his staff, that the Draft Report merely continues Smith’s politically-motivated attack, and that his continued preparation of the Report and efforts to release it would be both imprudent and unlawful.

The letter goes on to lay out arguments against releasing the report, including that it would “(give) rise to a media storm of false and unfair criticism” of Trump.

Smith refuted Blanche’s claims in a letter of his own to Garland, also included with the report’s release.

Read the letters and full report here.