U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon will not allow the public to see former special counsel Jack Smith’s report on why he prosecuted current President Donald Trump for allegedly unlawfully keeping classified documents at his Mar-a estate -Lago.
She issued the decision in a fourteen-page document order on Monday.
The order also fulfills the wishes of Trump and both of his former co-defendants in the case, clerk Waltine Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira: the men asked Cannon to keep the report away from the prying eyes of police . The House and Senate Judiciary Committees.
The Department of Justice under former Attorney General Merrick Garland had agreed to keep this part of Smith’s report secret from the general public as the case against Nauta and De Oliveira was still ongoing, but he was not opposed to sharing it with members of the congressional committee on the issue on the condition that they not leak it.
Cannon took issue with the now former special prosecutor and attorney general in her order Tuesday.
“Never before has the Ministry of Justice, prior to the conclusion of criminal proceedings against a suspect – and in the absence of a trial-specific reason as appropriate in the case itself – attempted to make public outside the Ministry a report prepared by a special prosecutor, containing substantive and extensive case information. Until now,” she wrote.
This is a development story. Check back later for updates.