DOJ can release part of Trump investigations report, court says

The U.S. Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday denied the requests of President-elect Donald Trump and his former co-defendants’ that the report not be published. The two-volume report was written by Special Counsel Jack Smith about his investigations of Trump for allegations of election interference and mishandling classified documents. Both legal cases against Trump have since been dismissed.

The Department of Justice has said it will only release a portion of the report focusing on Smith’s investigation of Trump for alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Another portion of the report, which centered on Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents, would remain under wraps, under the DOJ’s plan. The Eleventh Circuit Court, in denying request to block the report’s publication, has permitted the DOJ to go forward with that proposed course of action.

The election interference case in late November was dismissed without prejudice, meaning that it could be brought up again on a future date. Prior to the case being dismissed, the DOJ paused its efforts to prosecute Trump for his alleged conduct regarding the 2020 election results.

So when will this report into the election be published? In its first filing, the DOJ said that it would not be publishing the report before 10 a.m. on Friday, January 10. But it was up to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to decide whether he would release the report and when, the DOJ said.

Why is the portion about the classified documents remaining under wraps? Two of Trump’s associates—Waltine Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira—are still under investigation for allegedly mishandling classified documents. They argued that releasing the portion of the report pertaining to the investigation into their actions could unfairly bias potential jurors against them.

How did we get here? Earlier this week, Trump’s former co-defendants in his classified documents case, Nauta and De Oliveira, asked the court to block the publication of the DOJ report on the investigation into their actions.

A federal judge has dismissed the allegations that Trump improperly handled documents. But De Oliveira and Nauta still face charges. The two argued the publication of the report could bias potential jurors against them. Trump’s legal team sought to join that motion. The DOJ at first argued that the court could not prohibit the attorney general from publishing the report. But then it asked the court to allow it to release a part of the report which bore no relevance to Nauta and De Oliveira’s case. Nauta and De Oliveira were only mentioned in the one of the report’s two volumes, the DOJ said.

Dig deeper: Read my report in The SIft about how the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday refused to delay a sentencing hearing Trump had scheduled for today.