Special Counsel Jack Smith arrives to give remarks on an indictment against Trump in 2023 in Washington, D.C.
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Florida Judge Aileen Cannon on Tuesday temporarily blocked the Justice Department from releasing a final report by special counsel Jack Smith, in the latest setback for federal criminal charges against Donald Trump.
Prosecutors dropped two criminal cases against Trump after he won the 2024 election, and the final report by Smith may be the last chance for prosecutors to explain their decisions.
Trump was charged with election interference in Washington, D.C., and with hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort and refusing to return them to the FBI. Smith dropped the cases after the November election, following a longstanding Justice Department policy against prosecuting a sitting president.
But special counsels are also obligated to file a report on their actions with the attorney general when they finish their work. The current attorney general, Merrick Garland, has pledged to make most of those reports public.
Smith had been set to file his report to Garland on Tuesday, with an eye to releasing it to the public as soon as this week.
But Cannon — who was appointed to the bench by Trump and had earlier dismissed the documents case — ordered the DOJ not to share Jack Smith’s final report until a federal appeals court resolves the legal fight.
Cannon had thrown out the prosecution of Trump and two codefendants, longtime aides Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, on the ground that Smith had been appointed in an unconstitutional manner. After Trump won the 2024 election, the Justice Department dropped him from its appeal. But it continued the appellate case for the other two defendants, who raised concern that they would be prejudiced if Smith’s final report is published while they still face the threat of a trial.
Trump has also argued the special counsel was appointed unlawfully and that any public report would be legally invalid and hurt his transition into the White House.
He personally attacked Smith at a press conference on Tuesday, calling him “a mean, nasty guy” and praising Cannon’s decision to throw out the documents case.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit is set to rule on the emergency motion to block the report’s release.
Rep. Gerald Connolly, Va., the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, criticized Cannon’s decision on Tuesday.
“DOJ must release its report on Trump’s mishandling of classified documents by January 20 so that the American people can understand the full extent of the President-elect’s unlawful possession of hundreds of the government’s most sensitive documents,” he said in a statement. “The public’s right to know is paramount.”
Appeal of sentencing fails
However, another case against the president-elect is moving ahead: the only one of his multiple criminal cases to go to trial.
A New York state appeals court on Tuesday denied the request from Trump’s legal team for a delay in his sentencing in his hush-money conviction, which is scheduled for Friday, just 10 days before his inauguration.
A state jury convicted Trump for 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal a payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels. Trump’s legal team had sought to delay or scrap the entire case, arguing the president-elect was immune from prosecution.
New York Judge Juan Merchan had previously delayed the sentencing multiple times, but recently said Trump’s lawyers failed to prove the president-elect was immune from the charges.
