U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon on Tuesday blocked Special Counsel Jack Smith from releasing his final report on investigations into President-elect Donald Trump, citing potential “irreparable harm” to co-defendants.
The emergency motion, filed by Trump co-defendants Waltine Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, resulted in an order preventing Smith from “releasing, sharing, or transmitting the Final Report or any drafts of such Report outside the Department of Justice.”
The order remains effective until three days after a resolution from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit.
“The Final Report promises to be a one-sided, slanted report, relying nearly exclusively on evidence presented to a grand jury and subject to all requisite protections—and which is known to Smith only as a result of his unconstitutional appointment—in order to serve a singular purpose: convincing the public that everyone Smith charged is guilty of the crimes charged,” the defendants argued in their filing.
Cannon previously dismissed Smith’s classified documents case against Trump last summer, ruling Smith’s appointment unconstitutional because he lacked Senate confirmation.
Judge Tanya Chutkan later dropped Smith’s charges in the 2020 election interference case, and Smith withdrew his appeal in the classified records case.
Trump responded to Cannon’s decision during a Tuesday press conference at Mar-a-Lago: “Deranged Jack Smith dropped the lawsuits. He was told to by the DOJ because they had no lawsuit. They lost in court in front of a very strong and a very brilliant judge.”
Attorney General Merrick Garland, who appointed Smith in 2022, has previously released reports from other special counsels, including John Durham’s investigation of the Trump-Russia probe origins and Robert Hur’s review of President Biden’s classified documents handling.
The temporary injunction comes as Trump prepares to take office, with longstanding Justice Department policy preventing criminal charges against sitting presidents.
Nauta and De Oliveira, who pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiring to obstruct the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago classified documents investigation, remain subject to potential future proceedings despite Trump’s case dismissals.