U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has permanently blocked the Justice Department from releasing former special counsel Jack Smith’s final report into the president’s alleged hoarding of sensitive materials.
In a Monday ruling, Cannon granted a request by President Donald Trump and two of his former co-defendants in the case, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, to prevent the full release of Smith’s findings regarding the investigation into Trump’s alleged mishandling of sensitive materials at Mar-a-Lago.
The ruling is the latest in a long line of decisions from Cannon that went in Trump’s favor during the federal investigation. This includes throwing out the entire case where Trump was accused of 40 felony counts after ruling that Smith was unlawfully appointed by then–Attorney General Merrick Garland because his appointment was not first approved by the Senate.
Cannon said that releasing Smith’s report in a case that never went to trial—and in which the president pleaded not guilty to all charges—would present a “manifest injustice” to the 79-year-old and his co-defendants.
“Special Counsel Smith, acting without lawful authority, obtained an indictment in this action and initiated proceedings that resulted in a final order of dismissal of all charges,” Cannon wrote.
“As a result, the former defendants in this case, like any other defendant in this situation, still enjoy the presumption of innocence held sacrosanct in our constitutional order. For obvious reasons, the Court need not take actions in contravention of that protection absent a statutory or other lawful directive to do so.”
The decision from Cannon, who was nominated to the federal bench in Florida by Trump, means that neither Attorney General Pam Bondi nor her successor can attempt to release Smith’s final report into Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents and his attempts to obstruct the government from retrieving them.
Cannon added that while other special counsels have released final reports at the conclusion of their work, they did so after charges were dropped or after a defendant pleaded guilty or was found guilty at trial.
“The Court strains to find a situation in which a former special counsel has released a report after initiating criminal charges that did not result in a finding of guilt—at least not in a situation like this one, where the defendants contested the charges from the outset and still proclaim their innocence,” Cannon said.
Smith testified to Congress last year that he had proof “beyond a reasonable doubt” that Trump tried to illegally overturn the 2020 election results, as well as “powerful evidence” that he purposely retained classified materials after leaving office in January 2021.
Last month, Smith also told the House Judiciary Committee how Trump “illegally kept classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago social club and repeatedly tried to obstruct justice to conceal his continued retention of those documents.”
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