Judge moves to bury Trump classified document report

What happened

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon Monday moved to permanently block the release of former special counsel Jack Smith’s final report on President Donald Trump’s hoarding of classified documents after he left the White House in 2021. Cannon said releasing Smith’s report would amount to a “manifest injustice” because it would impugn Trump’s presumption of innocence.

The ruling was a “resounding victory for Trump’s efforts to block public viewing of what probably would be damaging details about his retention of classified materials,” The Washington Post said. Cannon, a Trump appointee in Florida, has “drawn scrutiny for rulings that favor Trump and cut against longstanding practice and precedent,” Politico said.

Who said what

The classified documents prosecution was “once seen as the most perilous of the four criminal cases” Trump faced, The Associated Press said. But Cannon dismissed it in 2024 “after concluding that Smith was unlawfully appointed.” In Monday’s ruling, Cannon slammed Smith for his “brazen stratagem” of compiling the report after her dismissal order, while the Justice Department was appealing her ruling. Smith dropped the case after Trump was elected, citing Justice Department rules.

It is “common practice for special counsels to release reports even if their investigations do not result in guilty verdicts,” but Cannon “attempted to differentiate the release of Smith’s report” by noting the charges were dismissed, the Post said. The situation is unprecedented, but “largely because Cannon’s order dismissing the case on the grounds that Smith’s appointment was unlawful was, itself, unprecedented.”

Before throwing out the case, Cannon delayed it “for months” and, after a federal appeals court overruled her, “rejected the speedy schedule that Smith sought for the criminal case,” Politico said. She emphasized in Monday’s ruling that “all parties” agreed the report should remain hidden, but that’s only “technically true” because Trump’s lawyers and his Justice Department are on the same page, while Cannon denied permission to legal groups who petitioned to formally argue for its release.

What next?

Cannon’s ruling also applies to future attorneys general, but it’s “unlikely to be the last word on the matter,” The New York Times said. The two watchdog groups whose intervention she blocked, American Oversight and the Knight First Amendment Institute, have appeals pending before the federal appellate court that sits over Cannon.