Trump urges Judge Aileen Cannon to keep Jack Smith's final report secret

Judge Aileen Cannon in 2021 (Creative Commons)

President Donald Trump is urging U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon to block any release of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s final report on his investigation into the president’s alleged mishandling of hundreds of classified documents, in a case that had been charged in part under the Espionage Act.

On Tuesday, Trump argued in a court filing that Smith’s report should never be made public, in what would be a deviation from previous practice, Politico reported.

The president urged Cannon, whom he nominated to the bench, “to extend her 11-month-old order blocking the Justice Department from releasing the full report, which Smith submitted shortly before Trump’s second inauguration.”

In the court document, Trump’s attorney, Kendra Wharton, wrote that allowing the report to become public would “perpetuate Jack Smith’s unlawful criminal investigations and proceedings.”

Politico noted that the president’s filing “is infused with the typical disdain Trump has expressed for his former prosecutors, labeling Smith a ‘so-called special counsel’ and saying the case was ‘marred by numerous deficiencies and repeated abuses of office.'”

Smith dropped all charges against Trump after the U.S. Supreme Court, in a highly controversial ruling, found that presidents have extensive immunity from prosecution for official acts.

“Trump’s request is a break from the Justice Department’s handling of all special counsel reports in recent decades,” Politico added. “Typically, those reports are provided to Congress and made public, even when they have included damaging findings about the incumbent administration.”

The day after Trump was inaugurated, Judge Cannon denied the U.S. Department of Justice’s request to share Smith’s report on his investigation into Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents with Congress. Her order came just hours after Trump signed an executive order to hold former government officials accountable for “unauthorized disclosure” of “sensitive” information, and “for election interference.”

Cannon refused to allow members of Congress to review Smith’s final report. Trump was investigated for alleged unlawful removal, retention, and refusal to return sensitive, classified, and top-secret documents, reportedly including nuclear and defense secrets. The FBI executed a lawful search warrant on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and residence to retrieve some of the documents.

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