U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon of the Southern District of Florida issued an order Tuesday temporarily preventing former Special Counsel Jack Smith from releasing a report into the so-called “documents” case against President-elect Donald Trump.
Trump’s legal team filed an emergency motion on Monday night in the U.S. district and appellate court to stop Smith.
Cannon’s order Tuesday read, in part:
Pending resolution of the Emergency Motion filed in the Eleventh Circuit and/or any further direction from the Eleventh Circuit, Attorney General Garland, the Department of Justice, Special Counsel Smith, all of their officers, agents, and employees, and all persons acting in active concert or participation with such individuals, see Fed. R. Civ. P. 65(d)(2), are TEMPORARILY ENJOINED from (a) releasing, sharing, or transmitting the Final Report or any drafts of such Report outside the Department of Justice, or (b) otherwise releasing, distributing, conveying, or sharing with anyone outside the Department of Justice any information or conclusions in the Final Report or in drafts thereof.
The order against Smith’s report will be in effect until three days after the Eleventh Circuit’s decision, Cannon wrote. (Read more: Breitbart News, 1/7/2025) (Archive)
NBC News reports:
Special counsel Jack Smith has turned over to Attorney General Merrick Garland the completed final report on his two investigations that resulted in felony charges against President-elect Donald Trump, part of which Garland intends to make public, the Justice Department said in a filing Wednesday.
The filing — which was made by the Justice Department separate from Smith’s office — came after Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon temporarily blocked the release of the report on Trump’s handling of classified documents. Cannon is the Florida judge who tossed the charges against Trump, siding with an argument that Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional.
But the Justice Department said Wednesday there was “neither any need nor legal basis for an injunction” on the release of the report because Garland intends to give Congress only volume one — which focuses on Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election — “in furtherance of the public interest in informing a co-equal branch and the public regarding this significant matter.”