Judge permanently blocks release of final report on Trump classified documents probe

(WASHINGTON) — The federal judge who tossed then-special counsel Jack Smith’s classified documents case against President Donald Trump has permanently barred the release of Smith’s final report on his probe.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the case in 2024 after deciding that Smith’s appointment as special counsel was unlawful, then blocked the release of the Smith’s report on his investigation.

She ruled Monday that the report should be sealed for good, after Trump and his co-defendants in the case sought a court order barring the report’s release.

The public release of the report “would contravene the conclusions in the Court’s final Dismissal Order that Special Counsel Smith acted without lawful appointment or funding authority in this proceeding and that his actions taken in connection herewith are therefore invalid,” Cannon’s order said.

Cannon, a Trump appointee, also scolded Smith for preparing the report in the first place even though she had ruled his appointment was unlawful, calling it a “concerning breach of the spirit of the Dismissal Order.”

“Nevertheless, rather than seek a stay of the Order, or clarification, Special Counsel Smith and his team chose to circumvent it, for months, by taking the discovery generated in this case and compiling it in a final report for transmission to then-Attorney General Garland, to Congress, and then beyond,” Cannon wrote in her order.

“The Court need not countenance this brazen stratagem or effectively perpetuate the Special Counsel’s breach of this Court’s own order,” she wrote.

Trump pleaded not guilty in June 2023 to 40 criminal counts related to his handling of classified materials after leaving the White House in 2021, after prosecutors said he repeatedly refused to return hundreds of documents containing classified information and took steps to thwart the government’s efforts to get the documents back. Trump asserted that he had every right to possess the documents.

Smith, testifying publicly before the GOP-led House Judiciary Committee last month, said his investigation “developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in criminal activity” — and that partisan politics did not play a role in his decision to charge Trump.