Legal Victory For Donald Trump: Florida Judge Blocks DOJ From Releasing Report On Classified Document Case
Date
1/21/2025 3:15:54 PM
(MENAFN- Live Mint) A federal judge in Florida ruled that the US Justice Department can't share with members of congress a sealed portion of former Special Counsel Jack Smith's report on the criminal investigations into President Donald Trump.
The order by US District Judge Aileen Cannon on Tuesday is a legal win for trump and his former co-defendants, but the fight had likely become moot once Trump was sworn in Monday. The president was already expected to stop the Justice Department from sharing the sealed portion with Congress.
The first volume of the Smith report, which covered the investigation into Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, had already been made public during Joe Biden's final days in office. The second part concerned the probe of Trump's handling of classified information after he left office in 2021 and his alleged efforts to obstruct US officials trying to get those documents back.
Former Attorney General Merrick Garland had planned to keep the report on the documents case secret while criminal prosecutions were proceeding against two others in the case. But Garland said he would share a copy with several senior members of Congress.
Trump was no longer formally part of the litigation - Smith dropped the pursuit of charges against him after his election win - but made clear that he opposed any release outside of the department. His former co-defendants Waltine Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira were pressing the legal fight to stop that from happening.
Cannon wrote that she couldn't rely on the department's assurances that members of Congress set to receive the report would agree to not share it with the public. She found that there was“certainly a reasonable likelihood” that giving the volume to Congress would result in some or all of it being released.
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