It is the latest decision in a legal dispute over the highly anticipated document, days before Mr. Trump returns to the White House.
But a temporary injunction barring immediate release of the report remains in effect until Tuesday, and U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s order is unlikely to end that litigation. Mr. Trump’s lawyers could seek to challenge the order all the way to the Supreme Court.
Judge Cannon, who was appointed to the position by Mr. Trump, previously temporarily blocked the Justice Department from releasing the full report on Special Prosecutor Smith’s investigations into Mr. Trump that led to two criminal cases distinct. Judge Cannon’s order Monday cleared the way for the release of the voluminous report detailing the case. Prosecutor Smith accused Mr. Trump of conspiring to overturn his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.
The judge set a hearing Friday to determine whether the Justice Department can release to elected officials this report which accuses Mr. Trump of having accumulated classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago property after leaving the White House in 2021. The Justice Department has already clarified that it will not publicly release this full report while criminal proceedings against two of Mr. Trump’s co-defendants remain ongoing.
Judge Cannon dismissed the classified documents case last July, finding that Special Prosecutor Smith’s appointment was illegal. And the Justice Department dropped both cases after Mr. Trump’s presidential victory in November, citing its policy that bars federal prosecutions of sitting presidents.
Mr. Smith resigned from his post last Friday after forwarding his report to Attorney General Merrick Garland, the Justice Department revealed in a footnote to a court filing late this week.
Judge Cannon’s ruling, if upheld, could allow people to learn additional details in the coming days about Mr. Trump’s frantic but ultimately unsuccessful effort to cling to power before the deadly insurrection from January 6, 2021 at the Capitol.
But even though Judge Cannon allowed the volume on election interference to be released, she blocked the Justice Department from immediately sharing with congressional officials a separate volume related to the classified documents Mr. Trump took to Mar-a -Lago, Florida.
Lawyers for the president-elect’s two co-defendants, Mr. Trump’s valet Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira, argued that releasing the report would harm them given that criminal charges are still pending. pending against them, in the form of a Justice Department appeal of Judge Cannon’s decision to dismiss the charges.
As a compromise, the Justice Department said it would not make the document public but would instead share it with some congressional officials for private review. But Judge Cannon put a stop to those plans and instead scheduled a hearing for Friday afternoon.
“All parties agree that Volume II expressly and directly concerns these criminal proceedings,” she wrote. “All parties also appear to agree that the public release of Volume II would be inconsistent with the fair trial rights of Defendants Nauta and De Oliveira and with Department of Justice policy governing the release of information during the pendency of criminal proceedings. .”
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