The Department of Justice is pressing ahead with efforts to release the remaining volume of special counsel Jack Smith’s final report to select members of Congress.
In a court filing submitted overnight, DOJ attorneys challenged arguments from former co-defendants of Donald Trump in his classified documents case, dismissing their efforts to block the report’s release as “entirely conjecture.”
Last week, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon issued a temporary order preventing Attorney General Merrick Garland from providing the report to the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees. Cannon scheduled a hearing for Friday to consider claims from Trump’s former co-defendants, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, that releasing the report would unfairly prejudice their case as the government appeals Cannon’s earlier dismissal.
In the filing, U.S. Attorney Markenzy Lapointe and Justice Department attorneys argued that Nauta and De Oliveira had not demonstrated how Cannon had jurisdiction to interfere with Garland’s management of DOJ’s communications with Congress. The co-defendants, a longtime Trump aide and a Mar-a-Lago staffer, have expressed concerns that leaks from the report could harm their case. Prosecutors countered that the report would only be available to a select group of Congress members, who would be bound by confidentiality and limited to an on-camera review without the ability to take notes.
Prosecutors also rejected arguments about the constitutionality of Smith’s appointment, asserting that they had no bearing on Garland’s authority to release the report.
The Justice Department on Tuesday released the first volume of Smith’s report, which focuses on the election interference case against Trump. Cannon ruled that the contents were unrelated to the evidence or charges against Nauta and De Oliveira in their ongoing case.
In his final report on the January 6 probe, Smith stated that he was confident Trump would have been convicted of multiple felonies for efforts to “overturn” the 2020 election had voters not returned him to the White House in 2024. Smith resigned as special prosecutor last week after submitting his report to Garland.
