Federal Judge Blocks Release Of Jack Smith Report’s Second Volume
A federal judge on Monday agreed to permanently block the release of volume two of former special counsel Jack Smith’s report, which focuses on how President Donald Trump handled classified materials after his first term in office. This was a big win for the president and his co-defendants.
Aileen Cannon, a U.S. District Judge who was appointed by Trump, agreed to the president’s request to stop the release of the second volume of the report permanently. She said that publishing it would be a “manifest injustice” to Trump and the other defendants in the classified documents case.
“Special Counsel Smith, acting without lawful authority, obtained an indictment in this action and initiated proceedings that resulted in a final order of dismissal of all charges,” Cannon said Monday.
The ruling blocks the Justice Department from “releasing, distributing, conveying, or sharing with anyone outside the Department of Justice any information or conclusions in Volume II or in drafts thereof.”
The announcement coincides with the scheduled release of Volume II of Smith’s special counsel probe on Tuesday.
Trump’s former defense attorney, Kendra Wharton, praised Cannon’s decision to block Volume II of Smith’s report from being released publicly, telling Fox News Digital in a statement that her “courage and judicial resolve on these important due process issues should be recognized and taught in law school classrooms across America.”
Cannon had already said that Smith’s appointment as special counsel was against the law, but the case was dropped after Trump won re-election in 2024.
Cannon’s 15-page order on Monday said that letting Volume II of the special counsel report be released would “go against basic ideas of fairness and justice” and probably lead to the sharing of private information, such as information protected by attorney-client privilege.
“Moreover, while it is true that former special counsels have released final reports at the conclusion of their work, it appears they have done so either after electing not to bring charges at all or after adjudications of guilt by plea or trial,” Cannon said.
“The Court strains to find a situation in which a former special counsel has released a report after initiating criminal charges that did not result in a finding of guilt, at least not in a situation like this one, where the defendants contested the charges from the outset and still proclaim their innocence,” she added.
In 2022, former Attorney General Merrick Garland asked Smith to look into claims that Trump and his allies tried to change the results of the 2020 election and that Trump kept secret documents at his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach after leaving office in 2021.
In both cases, Smith had filed charges against Trump.
After Trump’s election, the charges were dropped, which is in line with a long-standing policy of the Justice Department that says sitting presidents shouldn’t be prosecuted for federal crimes. Soon after, Smith quit his job.
Trump’s former defense attorney, Kendra Wharton, praised Cannon’s decision to block Volume II of Smith’s report from being released publicly, telling Fox News that her “courage and judicial resolve on these important due process issues should be recognized and taught in law school classrooms across America.”
Smith, on the other hand, has strongly tried to refute the idea that his team acted politically, using public and private comments to House Republicans in December and January to defend what his team did.
He said that his team had found “powerful evidence” that Trump had kept highly classified documents after leaving office in January 2021 at his private Mar-a-Lago home and had been getting in the way of the government’s efforts to get them back.
“I made my decisions in the investigation without regard to President Trump’s political association, activities, beliefs, or candidacy in the 2024 presidential election,” Smith told members of the House Judiciary Committee in a Dec. 17 interview.
