The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) told a federal court on Jan. 23 that it should bar the release of former special counsel Jack Smith’s report on the classified documents investigation into President Donald Trump.
Judge Aileen Cannon, of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, previously issued an injunction blocking the report’s release, but her order expires next month.
The DOJ said in a court filing that the report should not be made public because releasing it would prejudice the three defendants in the case, including Trump, and because Smith’s tenure as special counsel was “marked by illegality and impropriety.”
Cannon held that Smith’s appointment by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland violated the appointments clause of the U.S. Constitution. The judge determined that the appointment was invalid because Smith was not nominated by President Joe Biden and confirmed by the U.S. Senate and because no federal statute specifically authorized the appointment.
The DOJ, then under the control of the Biden administration, appealed the dismissal.
Later, after Trump won the presidential election in November 2024, Smith dropped his prosecution against Trump, who had been charged with obstructing justice and unlawfully retaining classified documents after leaving the White House in January 2021.
Smith resigned as special counsel on Jan. 10, 2025, 10 days before Trump was inaugurated as the nation’s 47th president.
That motion states that the release of the second volume would constitute “an irreversible violation of [the] Court’s constitutional rulings in the underlying criminal action and of bedrock principles of the separation of powers.”
“Release would also lead to the public dissemination of sensitive grand jury materials, attorney-client privileged information, and other information derived from protected discovery materials, raising significant statutory, due process, and privacy concerns for President Trump and his former co-defendants,” the motion reads.
“Smith not only weaponized the Department of Justice against a leading presidential candidate in pursuit of an antidemocratic end, but he did so without legal authority and while targeting constitutionally protected activity,” the brief reads.
“Put simply, Smith’s tenure was marked by illegality and impropriety, and under no circumstance should his work product be given the full weight and authority of this Department.”
The filing also said that U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi takes the position that the three codefendants would be subject to “extraordinary unfairness and prejudice” with the release of information over which Trump has asserted attorney–client privilege.
“The illicit product of an unlawful investigation and prosecution belongs in the dustbin of history,” the brief states.
“No one should be above the law in our country, and the law required that [the president] be held to account,” Smith said. “So that is what I did.”
The Epoch Times reached out to Smith through his attorneys at Covington and Burling in Washington but received no response.
