WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A federal judge cleared the way on Monday for the U.S. Department of Justice to publicly release a portion of former special counsel Jack Smith’s report into President-elect Donald Trump’s 2020 election subversion case.
District Judge Aileen Cannon, appointed to the position by Trump at the end of his first term, had previously blocked the Justice Department from releasing the entire report.
However, she has declined for now a request from the Justice Department to allow congressional leadership to review the second part of Smith’s report regarding Trump’s withholding of classified documents and has scheduled an emergency hearing next Friday. to hear arguments on the matter.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing in both cases.
Attorney General Merrick Garland had said he intended to publicly release the first part of Smith’s report on Trump’s 2020 election subversion, but that he would refrain from publicly releasing the part about the classified documents case due to the ongoing criminal cases against Trump associates Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira.
Smith formally resigned as special prosecutor on January 10.
A former war crimes prosecutor, Smith brought two of the four criminal cases that Trump responded to after leaving office, but saw them halted after Cannon dismissed the classified documents case and the U.S. Supreme Court — with three Trump-appointed judges — decide that former presidents have total immunity from prosecution for official acts.
Neither case went to trial, and the Justice Department has since dropped the cases against Trump, citing the department’s long-standing policy against prosecuting a sitting president.
