U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Donald Trump appointee who shut down a case into his retainment of classified documents, is giving up on blocking former special counsel Jack Smith’s report into Trump’s efforts to subvert the 2020 election on Jan. 6.
In a Monday ruling, Cannon rejected a bid from Trump employees and former codefendants Walt Nauta and Carlos de Oliveira to block the Jan. 6 report, effectively echoing a higher court ruling on Friday allowing its release once an injunction expires on Tuesday.
Attorneys for Nauta and de Oliveira may still appeal their battle to block the release to the Supreme Court, but as it stands, the report may finally see the light of day.
The report, which Smith and Attorney General Merrick Garland say is finished after the office ended its prosecution of Trump, is expected to lay out a case against the president-elect. Prosecutors in Arizona have already requested the findings, claiming Smith’s investigation could advance their own against eleven “fake electors” who conspired to overturn state results.
Cannon initially blocked both reports but conceded on Monday that “nothing in Volume One [the Jan. 6 portion] of the Final Report…directly or indirectly refers, relies, or bears in any respect upon any evidence or argument relevant to any of the charges alleged against Defendants Nauta and De Oliveira.”
As for Smith’s second report on Trump, detailing Trump’s alleged attempts to hoard classified documents after his presidency inside his Florida home, Cannon set a hearing on blocking its release on Friday afternoon, just four days before Trump is set to take office and likely shut down the reports.
Legal experts say Cannon didn’t have jurisdiction over the Jan 6 report anyway – or potentially even the classified documents report – but Monday’s ruling makes it easier for Garland to navigate the challenges to releasing the report on Trump’s election overturn attempts.
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