Judge temporarily blocks release of report on Trump investigations

Federal District Court Judge Aileen Cannon on Tuesday prohibited the U.S. Department of Justice from releasing a report about Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigations of President-elect Donald Trump. The DOJ is prohibited from making any details of the report public until three days after a circuit court resolves the matter. Smith was tasked with investigating Trump for two cases, alleged federal election interference and alleged mishandling of classified documents.

Both cases against Trump have been dismissed. However, Trump’s two former co-defendants in the classified documents case, Waltine Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, asked Cannon to block the report’s publication on Monday. They also asked a federal appeals court to do the same on Tuesday. Trump also asked Cannon to block the report’s publication on Tuesday.

What did Trump’s team say? While he’s no longer a defendant in the case, Trump’s lawyers also petitioned the district court on Tuesday for permission to intervene, or participate, in the legal action. The president-elect’s team argued that the release of the report would be harmful to the presidential transition process and the presidency itself. Trump’s lawyers argued the court should grant the emergency motion by Natua and De Oliveira to block the release of the report.

What started this legal exchange? Smith, who investigated the president-elect on behalf of the DOJ, advised Nauta and De Oliveira that he was compiling a report about his investigations. The defendants argued to the appeals court on Tuesday—and a district court on Monday—that Smith planned to release the report to cause injury to them and the president-elect. If the report was published before Nauta and De Oliveira had their case tried before a jury, it could cause potential jurors to view them unfavorably, they argued.

What does the Department of Justice have to say? Jack Smith’s team wrote to the district court on Monday that the special counsel was finalizing a two-volume confidential report into his investigations into President-elect Donald Trump. One of the volumes focused on the case that Nauta and De Oliveira were co-defendants in, Smith’s team said. The volumes would go to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland once they were complete, and it would be his decision about whether any of the report was made public. The DOJ promised that it would not release the report before Friday.

Dig deeper: Read Lynn Vincent’s report in the WORLD archives about how the DOJ’s raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence may have signaled a crossing of the Rubicon in American politics.