A federal judge in Florida on Monday cleared the way for the Justice Department to soon release part of a report written by special counsel Jack Smith detailing the decisions he made accusing President-elect Donald J. Trump of conspiring to overturn his 2020 election defeat.
But in a five-page order, the judge, Aileen M. Cannon, ruled that prosecutors and defense lawyers must appear before her in court Friday to discuss whether the Justice Department can release to members of Congress the role of Mr. Smith’s report dealing with a case she oversaw: the one in which Mr. Trump accused of refusing to return classified documents after leaving office.
According to the ruling, the Ministry of Justice could release part of the report on the election case as early as Tuesday morning shortly after midnight. Lawyers Mr. Trump can still ask the appeals court or the Supreme Court to stop the release of that part of Mr. Smith.
Judge Cannon’s order, filed in Federal District Court in Fort Pierce, Fla., was the latest twist in a week-long battle over the release of the two-volume report, which represents Mr. Smith about two closed criminal cases against which he was initiated. Mr. Trump.
In one of those cases, overseen by Judge Cannon in Florida, Mr. Trump was accused of illegally withholding a series of state secrets after he left office in 2021 and then conspiring with two of his aides to obstruct the government’s efforts to recover the material. In another case, filed in Federal District Court in Washington, D.C., he was charged with three interlocking conspiracies to illegally retain power after he lost the presidential race.
The Justice Department has already said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland wants to release the book on the classified documents case privately to congressional leaders, not to the public, because the case is still active against two aides to Mr. Trump who have been indicted for him as a co-defendant.
But attorneys for the co-defendants, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, said the plan was risky and expressed concern that deputies could reveal the contents of the notebook.
In her order, Judge Cannon agreed with defense attorneys and barred the Justice Department from showing that portion of the report to anyone until all proceedings in the classified documents case were completed.
“The Court is unwilling to take a chance on the general interest of members of Congress, at least not without a full briefing and hearing on the subject,” she wrote.
Judge Cannon suggested that much of Friday’s hearing may have to be held behind closed doors to avoid public dissemination of any contents of the tome of classified documents.
The Justice Department fought on multiple fronts to get Mr. Smith’s report out to the public even though he officially stepped down as special counsel on Friday.
Prosecutors have already appealed Judge Cannon’s original order blocking the release to a federal appeals court in Atlanta — the same court that previously overturned one of her unusual rulings in favor of Mr. Trump. Prosecutors argued to the appeals court that it had no jurisdiction to issue a stay order in the first place, let alone extend it, but Judge Cannon continued anyway.
However, Judge Cannon stated in her order that she had adequate authority over at least the confidential documents section of Mr Smith’s report. It claimed jurisdiction over the matter because the release of the report could affect the cases of Mr Nauta and Mr De Oliveira.
After Mr. Trump won the 2024 election, Mr. Smith dropped both cases against him, complying with a longstanding Justice Department policy that prohibits the prosecution of sitting presidents.
Although Mr. Trump will not stand trial in either case, Justice Department regulations require special counsel to write final reports when they finish their work. In recent years, attorneys general have released such reports — including the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, a counter-probe into the origins of that investigation and an examination of President Biden’s handling of classified documents — as highly detailed explanations of their findings for public and historical understanding.
For more than a week, Mr. Trump’s legal team has fought hard to prevent any part of Mr. Smith’s report from being released, calling it a “one-sided” and “illegal” attack on the president-elect. The lawyers also expressed concern that the report could prove damaging or embarrassing to some unnamed but “expected” members of Mr Trump’s administration.
Judge Cannon dismissed the classified documents case this summer on the grounds that Mr. Garland had no authority to appoint Mr. Smith – a decision that ran counter to decades of multi-jurisdictional precedent and Department of Justice practice. Mr. Trump’s lawyers used the ruling as another argument why the report should be blocked from publication, but the department also appealed the ruling to the same appeals court in Atlanta.
The election meddling case, which came before Judge Tanya S. Chutkan of the Federal District Court in Washington, is also dead after being significantly slowed by a Supreme Court ruling in July that presidents are supposedly immune from prosecution for their official actions.
Judge Cannon’s ruling on Monday was a significant capitulation in one respect, but an escalation in another.
While she has not modified or lifted her original ban on the volume of reports related to the election case, she is no longer trying to prevent the Justice Department from releasing that portion after her freeze expires at the end of Monday.
But she extended her blocking of the department from showing casebooks of classified documents to top members of the House and Senate Judiciary — which was Mr. Garland. She ordered the two sides to her isolated courtroom Friday for a hearing on his fate.
In a brief note, Judge Cannon wrote that she was not “persuaded” by the government’s position that she was stripped of jurisdiction over the matter by her appeal of her injunction, arguing that an appeals court could overturn her earlier decision to dismiss the case.
The possibility that the publication of the report could violate the rights of Mr. Naute and Mr. De Oliveire’s fair trial, she wrote, “clearly activates” her “obligation to preserve the integrity of this proceeding.”
She did not address prosecutors’ earlier suggestion that in the real world it was “uncertain” whether the case against Trump’s two co-defendants would “ever proceed.”
That appeared to be a reference to the likelihood that Mr. Trump would quickly end the case involving the remains of classified documents once he takes office, either by pardoning his associates or by new political appointees at the Justice Department ordering prosecutors to drop the matter.
