By Andrew Goudsward and Sarah N. Lynch
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A federal judge on Monday allowed the U.S. Justice Department to make public part of former special counsel Jack Smith’s report on the subversion case against President-elect Donald Trump in the 2020 election.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who Trump appointed to the post at the end of his first term, previously blocked the Justice Department from releasing the full report.
For now, however, she rejected a Justice Department request to allow congressional leadership to review another part of the Smith report related to Trump’s withholding of classified documents and scheduled an emergency hearing on Friday to hear arguments on the issue.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing in either case.
Attorney General Merrick Garland previously said he intended to publicly release the first part of Smith’s report on Trump’s 2020 election subversion, but would refrain from publicly releasing the part on the classified documents case because of the ongoing criminal case against Trump. collaborators Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira.
Late Monday, Trump’s lawyers filed a brief seeking to extend a temporary ban on the report, which is set to expire at midnight.
Smith officially resigned as special counsel on January 10.
A former war crimes prosecutor, Smith initiated two of the four criminal cases Trump has faced since leaving office, but saw them stalled after Cannon dismissed the classified documents case and the US Supreme Court dismissed three judges appointed by Trump – ruled that former presidents have broad immunity from prosecution for official acts.
Neither case went to trial, and the Justice Department has since dropped charges against Trump, citing a longstanding Justice Department policy against prosecuting the sitting president.
