Justice Department says it plans to release only part of special
counsel's Trump report for now
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[January 09, 2025]
By ERIC TUCKER and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department said Wednesday that it intends
to release special counsel Jack Smith’s findings on Donald Trump’s
efforts to undo the results of the 2020 presidential election but will
keep under wraps for now the rest of the report focused on the
president-elect's hoarding of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago
estate.
The revelation was made in a filing to a federal appeals court that was
considering a defense request to block the release of the two-volume
report while charges remain pending against two Trump co-defendants in
the Florida case accusing the Republican former president and current
president-elect of illegally holding classified documents. Aileen
Cannon, the Trump-appointed judge presiding over the classified
documents case, granted the request Tuesday, issuing a temporary block
on the report.
The Justice Department said it would proceed with plans to release the
first of two volumes centered on the election interference case but
would make the classified documents section of the report available only
to the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate Judiciary
Committees for their private review as long as the case against Trump's
co-defendants — Trump valet Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager
Carlos De Oliveira — is ongoing.
“This limited disclosure will further the public interest in keeping
congressional leadership apprised of a significant matter within the
Department while safeguarding defendants’ interests,” the filing said.
The decision lessens the likelihood that the report on the classified
documents investigation, which of all inquiries against Trump had once
seemed to carry the greatest legal threat, would ever be released given
that the Trump Justice Department almost certainly will not make the
document public even after the case against Nauta and De Oliveira is
resolved.
Lawyers for Nauta and De Oliveira objected to the Justice Department's
proposal in a filing of their own Wednesday evening, asking the appeals
court to send the case back to Cannon for a hearing.
They said sharing the report with members of Congress creates the
potential for it to leak and “reflects an improper attempt to remove
from the district court the responsibility to oversee and control the
flow of information related to a criminal trial over which it presides,
and to place that role instead in the hands of the prosecuting authority
— who unlike the trial court has a vested interest in furthering its own
narrative of culpability.”
Trump has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and been bitingly critical of
Smith, including during a wide-ranging news conference at Mar-a-Lago in
Palm Beach, Florida, on Tuesday in which he said, "It’ll be a fake
report just like it was a fake investigation.”
It was not immediately clear when the election interference report might
be released. The filing asks the Atlanta-based U.S. Court of Appeals for
the 11th Circuit to reverse Cannon's order that appeared to at least
temporarily halt the release of the entire report. The Justice
Department asked the appeals court to undo the freeze and make clear
that its “resolution of this question should be the last word,” though
it also acknowledged the potential that the Supreme Court may be asked
to weigh in.
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Special counsel Jack Smith speaks to the media about an indictment
of former President Donald Trump, Aug. 1, 2023, at an office of the
Department of Justice in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite,
File)
In its brief, the Justice Department said that the attorney
general’s authority to publicly release the election interference
section of the special counsel’s report is “clear” and that Trump’s
co-defendants have no legal argument to block the disclosure of a
section that has nothing to do with them.
“Indeed, with respect to Volume One of the Final Report, defendants
are hardly differently situated than any other member of the
public,” the department said.
The report is expected to detail findings and explain charging
decisions in Smith's two investigations.
The classified documents inquiry was dismissed in July by Cannon,
who concluded that Smith’s appointment was illegal. Smith's appeal
of the dismissal of charges against Nauta and De Oliveira, who were
charged alongside Trump with obstructing the investigation, is still
active, and their lawyers argued this week that the release of a
report while proceedings were pending would be prejudicial and
unfair.
The election interference case was significantly narrowed by a
Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity. The court ruled then
for the first time that former presidents have broad immunity from
prosecution, all but ending prospects Trump could be tried before
the November election.
Smith’s team abandoned both cases in November after Trump’s
presidential victory, citing Justice Department policy that
prohibits the federal prosecutions of sitting presidents.
Justice Department regulations call for special counsels appointed
by the attorney general to submit a confidential report at the
conclusion of their investigations. It’s then up to the attorney
general to decide what to make public.
Attorney General Merrick Garland has made public in their entirety
the reports produced by special counsels who operated under his
watch, including Robert Hur’s report on President Joe Biden’s
handling of classified information and John Durham’s report on the
FBI’s Russian election interference investigation.
The court request from De Oliveira and Nauta to block the report
also included a letter from Trump’s legal team, including Todd
Blanche, his pick for deputy attorney general, that made similar
points and used language that echoed some of Trump's own attacks on
Smith and his work.
Blanche told Garland that the “release of any confidential report
prepared by this out-of-control private citizen unconstitutionally
posing as a prosecutor would be nothing more than a lawless
political stunt, designed to politically harm President Trump and
justify the huge sums of taxpayer money Smith unconstitutionally
spent on his failed and dismissed cases."
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