The US Department of Justice will release only part of the report on the Trump investigation | News about Donald Trump
US officials have announced they plan to release only part of a report detailing federal investigations into President-elect Donald Trump, following a court order to block some of the findings.
On Wednesday, the Justice Department indicated that the released report would focus on special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
However, it would not address another federal investigation into Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents while he was not in office, after his first term ends in 2021.
The announcement means that some insight into the classified documents investigation is unlikely to become public anytime soon.
Trump is set to take office for his second term in less than two weeks, on January 20, when the Justice Department will fall under his control.
Secret documents investigation once seen as the biggest threat to Trump, who has been embroiled in a web of legal cases. He is the first American president to be convicted of criminal offenses.
Trump, however, has denied guilt in all cases. He repeatedly criticized the investigations as politically motivated and “fake”.
Although the classified documents portion of the report will not be released to the public, the Justice Department has indicated that it will make its contents available to the presidents and senior members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees.
Those members must agree to keep that department out of the public eye while the legal process surrounding the secret documents case is pending.
“This limited disclosure will further the public interest in informing Congressional leadership of an important matter within the Department while protecting the interests of the accused,” the Justice Department wrote in its court filings.
That process was at the heart of the decision to declassify the classified documents section of the report.
On Tuesday, the federal judge, Aileen Cannon, temporarily blocked its publicationcalling for a continuation of the legal battle.
While charges against Trump in the classified documents case were dismissed in November, his two co-defendants — Trump staffers Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira — still face the possibility of a criminal trial.
Nauta, an aide, and De Oliveira, a maintenance employee at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, are accused of helping the president-elect keep and cover up classified documents, despite a subpoena to hand them over.
Defense lawyers argued that releasing the report would improperly interfere with their right to a fair trial.
The Justice Department has not yet indicated when it will release the second part of the report, which focuses on allegations of election interference.
Smith also filed a motion in November to dismiss charges in that case, citing Trump’s imminent return to office. He cited the Justice Department’s policy against prosecuting the current president.
That case focused on Trump’s actions leading up to and after the November 2020 election, when the Republican incumbent faced Democrat Joe Biden for president.
Trump ended up losing. But Smith and his team of federal prosecutors argued that Trump had entered into a conspiracy to defraud the US by overturning his defeat and disrupting official procedures to confirm the correct result.
Trump continued to falsely claim that he had won the 2020 race and that his victory was belied by widespread election fraud.
In a court filing Wednesday, the Justice Department said Attorney General Merrick Garland had “clear” authority to release the portion of the report focused on allegations of election interference.
“Indeed, given Volume One of the Final Report, the defendants are hardly any different from any other member of the public,” the department said.
Garland, a member of outgoing President Biden’s administration, appointed Smith as a special counsel in 2022 to avoid any conflict of interest that a political appointee may have leading the case.
Justice Department regulations require Smith to submit a final report to Garland.
The Attorney General has said he will release any special counsel reports he receives: He previously released a report written by special counsel Robert Hur about Biden’s handling of classified documents outside of public service.
However, Trump and his defense team fought to stop the release. At a news conference Tuesday at Mar-a-Lago, Trump called Smith “a disgrace.”
“He wanted to do a report right before I take office probably, so he’s going to do a 500-page report, and it’s going to be a fake report, just like the investigation was a fake investigation,” Trump said. “Why would he be allowed to write a false report?”
