A federal judge appointed by Donald Trump has permanently blocked the US justice department from releasing former special counsel Jack Smith’s report on the president’s handling of classified documents. The ruling by US district judge Aileen Cannon on Monday prevents the report from being sent to Congress or made public.
In her 15-page decision, Cannon denounced Smith for what she called a “brazen stratagem” of compiling the report after she had dismissed the case in 2024, ruling that he had been unlawfully appointed. She wrote that releasing the report would expose secret grand jury material, causing irreparable harm to Trump.
Cannon’s ruling adopts arguments from Trump’s legal team, including Todd Blanche, now deputy attorney general, that the report should never be released because the prosecutor should never have been appointed. She acknowledged that previous special counsels, such as Robert Mueller, had published reports, but said the circumstances here meant it was unfair to Trump.
The second volume of Smith’s report concerns Trump’s retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club and his efforts to obstruct their return. Smith had also charged two co-defendants, Walt Nauta and Carlos de Oliveira, for moving boxes of documents after a grand jury subpoena.
After Cannon dismissed the case in 2024, Smith appealed to the 11th circuit, but dropped the appeal following Trump’s re-election and resigned. The separate report on Trump’s election interference case was made public in January 2025.
