Groups press for release of special counsel Jack Smith’s report on Trump’s classified documents case

WASHINGTON (AP) – A First Amendment group and watchdog organization pressed a federal appeals court on Tuesday to compel the release of a Justice Department special counsel’s report on the criminal investigation into President Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

Even though the charges against the Republican president were dismissed last year, the volume of special counsel Jack Smith’s final report related to the classified documents case has remained under wraps because of an order from U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon. The case accused Trump of hoarding classified documents at his Florida estate and thwarting government efforts to retrieve them, but Cannon ruled that Smith’s appointment was illegal and threw out the charges.

The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and American Oversight are now pressing for the report’s release in separate filings Tuesday with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The groups argue there is no legitimate reason to keep secret the report stemming from what was widely regarded as the most perilous of all the prosecutions Trump confronted before his White House return.

“Transparency isn’t optional in a democracy. The public has a right to know what Special Counsel Smith found, and the Justice Department cannot continue to withhold a report that should have been released nearly a year ago under federal law,” said Chioma Chukwu, executive director of American Oversight. “By keeping this order in place, Judge Cannon is undermining both accountability and the rule of law.”

Cannon, who was appointed to the bench by Trump, blocked the Justice Department in January from handing over to Congress the volume related to the classified documents case after defense lawyers argued it would be one-sided and prejudicial. At the time, an appeal was still pending in the case against Trump’s co-defendants – Trump valet Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira – but the Justice Department has since abandoned those criminal proceedings as well.

The Knight Institute filed a motion in February urging Cannon to allow for the report’s release, but the judge has yet to rule. It’s asking the appeals court to force Cannon to issue a ruling, calling the delay “manifestly unreasonable.”

“This report is of singular importance to the public because it addresses allegations of grave criminal conduct by the nation’s highest-ranking official,” said Jameel Jaffer, executive director of Knight Institute, said in a statement. “There is no legitimate reason for the report’s continued suppression, and it should be posted on the court’s public docket without further delay.”

The classified documents case had been seen as the most legally clear-cut of the four Trump had faced, given the breadth of evidence that prosecutors say they had accumulated, including the testimony of close aides and former lawyers, and because the conduct at issue occurred after Trump left the White House in 2021 and lost the powers of the presidency.

Trump had denied any wrongdoing and criticized all the cases against him as a politically motivated attempt to thwart his bid to return to the White House.

The first volume of Smith’s report – focused on Trump’s 2020 election interference case – was publicly released in January. In that portion of the report, Smith defended his decision to bring criminal charges over Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and said he believed it would have resulted in a conviction had voters not returned Trump to the White House.