Trump's lawyers asked Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland to block release of the report and remove Smith from his position 'promptly.'
Filings by Donald Trump's lawyers suggest that Jack Smith's final report on his two probes could contain details that are potentially damaging to the president-elect.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon ruled Tuesday the Department of Justice can’t release Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report on his investigation into whether President-elect Donald Trump unlawfully withheld White House documents, after Smith suggested the final report could come out later this week.
In his letter to Garland, Trump attorney Todd Blanche argued that Smith was unlawfully appointed to the position of special counsel — the key reason Cannon dismissed the case last July. Thus, if his final report were to be published, it would violate the Appointments Clause and the Appropriations Clause, he said.
Trump tries to block the public from seeing special counsel Jack Smith’s final report. Two federal death row inmates don’t want their sentence to be commuted by Biden. And a winter storm starts heading offshore of the eastern U.S. while California braces for high winds.
Smith’s classified documents case against Trump was effectively stymied by Cannon. Smith appealed that decision, but Department of Justice policy dictates that sitting presidents cannot be prosecuted. So this case against Trump is basically done. But Smith still intends to send a final report on his case to the DOJ.
Trump's attorneys asked Garland to withhold special counsel Jack Smith's final report from the public, arguing its release would be "imprudent and unlawful."
Special counsel Jack Smith‘s final report into the criminal cases against President-elect Donald Trump has been blocked from release after the president’s lawyers launched a last-ditch effort to prevent its publication.
Lawyers for Donald Trump and his former co-defendants are trying to block the “imminent” release of a final report by special counsel Jack Smith following his prosecution of the president-elect for his attempts to overturn election results and his withholding of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago compound.
Judge Aileen M. Cannon, a Trump appointee who had dismissed the documents case in its entirety, temporarily barred the Justice Department from releasing Jack Smith’s account of his investigation.
Aileen Cannon is apparently so desperate to signal her loyalty to Trump that she’s flailing about where she has no jurisdiction.