Yes, Trump Is Trying to Prevent the Release of Jack Smith’s Report
As I have expected, Trump is trying to prevent the release of Jack Smith’s report. Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira asked Judge Cannon (who, unless I’m mistaken it, does not retain jurisdiction over the case) to prevent Smith from releasing the volume pertaining to the stolen documents. And that filing includes a long screed from Todd Blanche asking Merrick Garland to fire Jack Smith so he doesn’t do what Special Counsels do.
Among the other things Blanche complains about is that the report includes details on people expected to be part of Trump’s Administration. And that Xitter stalled its response to a warrant.
Equally problematic and inappropriate are the draft’s baseless attacks on other anticipated members of President Trump’s incoming administration, which are an obvious effort to interfere with upcoming confirmation hearings, and Smith’s pathetically transparent tirade about good-faith efforts by X to protect civil liberties, which in a myriad other contexts you have claimed are paramount.
As I keep mentioning, some of this will implicate Kash Patel. Hell, some of it may implicate Blanche himself.
As I have suggested, Garland may have been trying to release both this and the David Weiss report after Wednesday’s sentencing of Alexander Smirnov — so possibly the 10th. We’ll see whether Garland tries to get the documents part of the report out before Cannon tries to intervene.
Update: Jack Smith responded to the Florida motion.
The Special Counsel’s Office is working to finalize a two-volume confidential report to the Attorney General explaining the Special Counsel’s prosecution decisions. See 28 C.F.R. § 600.8(c). The Attorney General will decide whether any portion of the report should be released to the public. See 28 C.F.R. § 600.9(c). One volume of the report pertains to this case. The Attorney General has not yet determined how to handle the report volume pertaining to this case, about which the parties were conferring at the time the defendants filed the Motion, but the Department can commit that the Attorney General will not release that volume to the public, if he does at all, before Friday, January 10, 2025, at 10:00 a.m. The Special Counsel will not transmit that volume to the Attorney General before 1:00 p.m. on January 7, 2025. The Government will file a response to the defendants’ Motion no later than January 7, 2025, at 7:00 p.m.
Update: Aileen Cannon has enjoined DOJ from releasing the report at all. This wildly exceeds her authority and makes it more likely that it’ll come out under Presidential immunity.
Meanwhile, David Weiss plans to release a report under the same authority some time after Wednesday.
Needless to say, Blanche and Bove wilfully misrepresent the import of 28 CFR 600.9(c) and other parts of the Special Counsel regulations in the opening paragraph under header ll (p31/40pdf) in particular by referring to the public release by Smith (?!?)
Whereas, 28 CFR 600.9 (c), from which they selectively quote as if it imposes a duty on Smith, makes clear
“c) The Attorney General may determine that public release of these reports would be in the public interest, to the extent that release would comply with applicable legal restrictions. All other releases of information by any Department of Justice employee, including the Special Counsel and staff, concerning matters handled by Special Counsels shall be governed by the generally applicable Departmental guidelines concerning public comment with respect to any criminal investigation, and relevant law.”
It seems that their participation in the Transition team has not cured them of their tendency to misrepresent principles of law, nor guidance in regulations they will be subject to as public servants in the near future (they hope).
And if this doesn’t work, they can always modify a few words and refile it at a welcoming courthouse in North Texas. /s
Link to contact DOJ
https://www.justice.gov/doj/webform/your-message-department-justice
request entered
If Mr. Innocent is so innocent from all the crimes, then he should welcome the “witch hunt” report to reveal his innocence.
Todd Blanche is his personal lawyer nominated as deputy attorney general. Conflict of interest? Unethical?
“It’s not personal, it’s strictly business.” The Godfather (1972)
Thanks for the link, EW, to the Special Counsel’s reply. Good to learn that one volume is about the Jan 6 case and the second about the documents case, but from the filings by Trump’s (and Nauta’s and De Olivera’s) attorneys, I can’t figure out which volume is which. I hope we see both volumes released at one minute after 10:00 a.m. this Friday.
My reading of Blanche Bove screed, final paragraph of p 34/40 pdf and the contrasting language used to describe Trump’s criminality, and plural conspiracies in the quote referenced to Vol I and the more modest description of the criminality referenced to Vol II followed by reference to Nauta and De Oliviera is highly suggestive to me of which is which:
Vol I = J6
Vol II = documents
Good reading there, SteveBev, that the “unprecedented criminal effort” (quoting from Volume I of the Special Counsel’s draft report) is about Jan 6, but it could also describe the actions of Trump, Nauta & De Olivera at Mar a Lago in June of 2022 in hiding documents from the grand jury subpoena. We’ll have to wait until at least Friday to find out.
“Head of the criminal conspiracies” is more apt to J6 than the documents case I tend to believe
NONE of these people were cabinet nominees when the investigation begin, or when the indictments were made. Moreover, the public has a right to know that nominees are part of an extensive criminal conspiracy, particularly those pertaining to national security issues.
Just as Trump was neither president nor a candidate when the original investigation began. Yes, Smith was brought on after he declared candidacy, but the investigation was already very much ongoing.
A test to see if kowtowing is more impactful than calling bullshit.
If this report gets blocked somehow, some-which-way, I would release it anyway.
Fuck them.
Fucking legal bullshit.
Haven’t all of us had enough of this nonsense!
Seriously. Just leak it.
Trump’s Department of InJustice doesn’t begin for nearly two weeks yet.
I’m not getting my hopes up on this. I don’t think 13 days is enough time for the DOJ to sort out what needs to be redacted and what doesn’t. Yes, Jack Smith will give them a roadmap on how to do it, but I think Garland is too cautious to put this out with only 13 days on the clock.
They will know already.
My WAG #1 is Garland has already read the reports, and this is the exercise of getting the parties to assert their redactions claims.
Vol 1 will be bigger, and that’s ready to go on the 10th as per the motion reply
Smith in his reply is also saying that Vol II is ready to go subject to any further redactions Nauta and De Oliviera want to request/require. They are being given extra time ( my WAG #2 is that’s because Nauta and De Oliviera fired off their motion, as stooges for Trump, and being extra fair to them costs little to DoJ).
I would be astonished (WAG #3 ) if Garland didn’t personally have input into this process.
I tend to agree with SteveBev that Volume I is J6etc. and Vol II is docs.
But that letter from FORMER defendant TRUMP’s [possible FUTURE DOJ #2 & #3] lawyers to the COMPLICIT Judge actively conflates the two. What would be the benefit to them/their client?
NYT reporter, Alan Feuer, who [I think] is pretty good on this, might be confused in this article: [I annotated Feuer’s quotes with the Volume cited in the letter.]
Defense Lawyers Seek to Block Special Counsel Report in Trump Documents Case Both the Justice Department and the judge who oversaw the case were asked to stop the public release of the report. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/06/us/politics/trump-classified-documents-case-jack-smith.html Alan Feuer Published Jan. 6, 2025 / Updated Jan. 7, 2025, 9:37 a.m.
Note the word “harbored” is evidently NOT a quote from the report [VI].
Yep Feuer is confused
The 3 quoted phrases in the letter re Vol I are from p2, 68, 69.
2 engaged in an unprecedented criminal effort
68 the head of the criminal conspiracies
69 criminal design
I note that p67 is also mentioned amongst other pages
Re B&B running the Volumes together.
I think they did this to maximise the sense that the little guys rights are being trampled in the rush to get Trump.
But if that was their purpose it’s backfired, somewhat:
I note that the grave constitutional prejudice to Nauta and De Oliviera that B&B feared would be occasioned to them should the phrases they identified in Vol II be published, was all for nought, since their lawyers have waived any such concerns by publishing the B&B letter as an open exhibit on a public docket. (!?!?!)
Yes…LOL!
In his response, Smith emphasizes that he is concentrating on the Volume pertaining to the Docs case in this court, which is what had been under discussion when this letter was filed.
WHY are DEFENDANTS [and FORMER DEFENDANT]
conflating the two volumes of the report?
CANNON responds, as people note below. BUT…which VOLUME? BOTH?
https://bsky.app/profile/emptywheel.bsky.social/post/3lf64vwcyws2r
January 7, 2025 at 12:03 PM
Link: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.648652/gov.uscourts.flsd.648652.682.0.pdf
CONFLATION of the two volumes works for them.
So it’s down to Jill and Joe B.
Joe to sign the executive order and Jill to attach copies of EO to each volume, tied with a bow, to be placed on every seat and on top of the Bible ready for Inauguration Morning.
Maybe since it’s a hypothetical, we don’t have to assign the busy-work to a woman?
Cannon refers to ‘a final report’
Smith refers to a volume which pertains to this case.
Clear that Cannon has no jurisdiction over the other volume, because the applicants have no interests at stake in the other volume.
So that’s a bit less work for JillB
The response from any reputable judge should be “You fucked around. You’re finding out. This is the report to the people who paid for all of the investigating.”
WaPo: “Cannon temporarily blocks report on Trump classified-documents probe”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/01/07/jack-smith-trump-special-counsel-report-garland/
Cannon blocked it. Game, Set, Match??
It’s time for everyone to re-read Masha Gessen’s essays on surviving autocracy, and specifically heed the part “your institutions will not save you”. We’ve gone way past ‘normalcy’
No, it’s not.
That’s the game they play, delay, delay, delay. What are the odds that they can tie this up in the system for 2 weeks? They’ve won the first delay (set).
I’m really surprised that Cannon issued the stay so quickly. Unless they knew the release was coming before Friday, it would have behooved them for Cannon to wait at least a couple of days.
If Smith dismissed the rest of the Mar a Lago case, would that moot this order from Judge Cannon?
US Attorney SDFL has conduct of the Nauta De Oliviera case now.
then same question for the US Attorney SDFL.
Apparently not. Yes, Trump is piggybacking his claim off Nauta and de Oliveira’s continuing case, but he’s also alleging, without support, invalid claims about the reach of Trump’s immunity and the adequacy of the appointment process for Special Counsel. Might be useful for DoJ to appeal this directly to the 11th Cir.
My understanding was that Cannon based her dismissal of the Trump documents case on the ineligibility of the Special Counsel (that flimsy, flawed argument). If she did that for Trump, why wouldn’t it apply for the other two, Nauta and DeOliviera?
Or is she just keeping the case hanging around in order to pull something like this (i.e., blocking the report?
“Truth and transparency are critical.”
–Mike Johnson on releasing J6 tapes
Any thoughts now, Mike?
Did Garland and Smith not see this coming?
I’m sure they did. But as with Bob Hur’s report about Joe Biden, the process includes sharing drafts with the subject. There doesn’t seem to have been a way to publish it and confer with Trump’s lawyers later. Why this has taken us to within about ten days of Trump’s inauguration might bear scrutiny
I agree.
My suspicion is that Smith originally aimed to release already. But someone (my suspicion is Weinsheimer) said they could not release it before certification. So they couldn’t release it until today.
Thank you, although I’m not sure I understand that. How would certification of the next admin impact how this admin follows DOJ guidelines for the next few days?
The prohibition would have related to not releasing information that could be damaging to Trump before Congress voted to certify the Electoral College vote totals.
Exactly why that might be is hard to see, because the certification isn’t like an impeachment vote: it’s ministerial and lacks any real discretion.
“Meanwhile, David Weiss plans to release a report under the same authority some time after Wednesday.” — Funny how that works.
President Biden has presidential immunity. Let him release the report as an official act. The Supreme Court gave presidents immunity for official acts.
IMO, that’s a great idea…really.
I doubt he would do it though…
But Garland would have to give it to him first, which Cannon has ordered him not to so that’s not happening. Trump is going to go after Garland anyway. He might as well fall on his sword now for the good of the country. Easy for me to say though.
Does Cannon have the authority to block Garland from giving the report to Biden? It seems like that would also fall under the sweeping and unquestionable powers the president now has over the DoJ.
I actually came back to read this post a second time and to add that Biden should do what the OP said – force the release under his executive power. But I am equally confident that he won’t.
Past precedent (used informally/politically not as a legal term) has me thinking this will end with the Weiss report being released, Biden being impeached, and the Smith report getting buried as Trump keeps the hapless Dems chasing their own tails until after his inauguation.
Hear! Hear!
Someone at DKos had the same idea:
Cannon’s order is that the report can’t leave DOJ. So yes, Garland can’t give it to Biden.
If the president orders him to, who wins between Biden and Cannon?
what if he like leaves it on the counter and goes to get some coffee ?
1 It is Biden who has immunity, not the AG, SC, nor anyone at DoJ
2 Breach of the order would be contempt by any of the persons enjoined by it
3 There is an issue as to whether Cannon has subject matter jurisdiction over both volumes of the report. But that would need to be litigated before her. There is at least an argument that the report constitutes a whole. However, Cannon has ruled that at least for her case, SC was not lawfully appointed, which then raises questions about the status of the report, and to what extent Cannon ought to rely on /recognise the DOJ side are bound/ consider themselves bound by the SC Regulations.
4 On the other hand, the DC case in different circuit which was litigated to SCOTUS, the appointment of SC was at least waived, and Cannon should recognise that in those proceedings, not only does she not have jurisdiction, but legality of SC appointment is res judicata.
5 I suspect Cannon is going to rule that regarding the documents case all the evidence was unlawfully obtained by an unlawful prosecutor and that not only can the evidence not be used to prosecute, but any use of it having the possibility of any detrimental effect is unlawful.
6 The end game for Trump will be to leverage such a ruling, and his hold over the incoming DOJ to delegitimise to DC case too, preferably by burying the report.
7 if possible they will want Cannon to delay for as long as necessary ruling that she doesn’t have jurisdiction over the DC investigation product, until the new DoJ heads take over.
The alternative to 7 is deferring to 11 Circuit, and then petitioning SCOTUS
With any luck from their point of view, Trump aligned people will be both sides of the case by the time 11 Cir decides.
“So you’re saying we’ve got a chance…” :~(
punaise, I think it might not be a comforting but it is consoling to remember that a great deal of damning information has already come out about Trump, completely disqualifying information, presented in high profile forums to the American people in his first impeachment, his second impeachment, and by the Jan 6 committee after his term. A dozen high profile books on Trump’s unfitness. The Jan 6 committee showed not only Trump but a coordinated effort including state parties and the national party to betray if nothing else the Soul of America, our constitutional democracy. My point is that Trump is taking office, either way, and he’s going to be our President, so don’t let your happiness depend on whether or not this report gets released. Maybe it happens before he takes office, in a few years, or never. If you think about it, everyone who thinks a fascist American President would be a crisis in the abstract sense already pretty much knows what happened in the coup.
Related: Quita Jurecic reposted this on her Bluesky page:
Exclusive: Top Justice Department Official in Trump Classified Documents Case Resigns Counterintelligence chief Jay Bratt feared Trump would retaliate by firing him https://www.spytalk.co/p/exclusive-top-justice-department Michael Isikoff Jan 05, 2025
Quinta Jurecic might have noted that Jay Bratt, like anyone on Jack Smith’s team, must have planned for many months to retire if Trump won. Having served the warrant to search MAL, he knew he would have been high on Trump’s enemies list.
Resigning will keep him from being fired, but it won’t keep him out of court. If they want to punish him, they will go after him, and make his life miserable.
I think this goes back to the complaints about Garland and the release of the Hurr report….there doesn’t ever seem to be any plan by this administration to try and go on offense, even while playing by DOJs rules. It’s always reactive defense. And two steps behind. I get that there are proper procedures and guidelines to follow for DOJ but there should be a plan, a political plan by the Dems to fight this by whatever political means necessary. Hopefully they had or have a plan for this but time will tell. This is very very discouraging though.
DOG IG report from BEFORE 2020 election finally public AFTER 2024 election.
Trump DOJ officials may have tried to influence 2020 election through media leaks: IG report The inspector general’s internal report was obtained by ABC News. https://abcnews.go.com/US/internal-watchdog-found-doj-officials-trump-sought-influence/story?id=117419850 Alexander Mallin and Mike Levine January 7, 2025, 3:17 PM
Here’s one author’s THREAD about it:
https://bsky.app/profile/alexmallin.bsky.social/post/3lf6iiuv4vk2g
January 7, 2025 at 3:30 PM
Here’s the LINK to the December 2024 report:
https://www.scribd.com/document/812806929/IG-Report#fullscreen&from_embed
Here’s a Ryan REILLY article from AUGUST 27, 2020
Trump DOJ Targets Democratic Governors For COVID-19 Outbreaks In Veterans Homes “This really does smell,” said one former Civil Rights Division official who worries the Justice Department is weaponizing its power for political purposes. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/coronavirus-doj-democratic-governors-cuomo-whitmer_n_5f46c038c5b6cf66b2b22b75 08/27/2020 05:48 pm ET
[THANKS, Rayne!]
Here’s a related Zoe Tillman TWEET from 9/21/20
https://twitter.com/ZoeTillman/status/1308225579838255104
10:04 PM · Sep 21, 2020
Link:
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/7214895/9-21-20-DOJ-Letter-to-Nadler.pdf
Marcy responds at the time:
https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1308306268877094915
3:24 AM · Sep 22, 2020
Cannon dismissed the entire case. By virtue of her own actions she divested herself of jurisdiction. It is appalling wrong for her to magically grant jurisdiction back to herself to block the release of this report.
This should be a bigger deal. So far no one seems to care.