With President-elect Donald Trump to be inaugurated in less than two weeks, Attorney General Merrick Garland is still planning on releasing Special Counsel Jack Smith's report in the criminal case he brought against Trump for the events on and leading up to January 6, 2021. Garland, however, plans on holding onto a report to do with other criminal charges brought against Trump over classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
While Garland won't be releasing the report on classified documents, it's not exactly out of the goodness of his heart. Reporting from The Hill earlier on Wednesday covered how Trump's co-defendants, driver Walt Nauta and property manager Carlos De Oliveira, still face trial.
As The Hill mentioned:
Attorney General Merrick Garland plans to release only the volume of special counsel Jack Smith’s report dealing with Donald Trump’s plans to subvert the transfer of power after his loss in the 2020 election, holding back on sharing the Mar-a-Lago report while the president-elect’s two co-defendants still face trial.
Federal prosecutors made Garland’s plans clear in a Wednesday morning filing urging an appeals court to reject a bid from Trump valet Walt Nauta and property manager Carlos De Oliveira to bar the attorney general from releasing the report in its entirety.
Garland made the determination at Smith’s recommendation “to avoid any risk of prejudice.”
“The Attorney General determined that he will not make a public release of Volume Two while defendants’ cases remain pending. That should be the end of the matter,” prosecutors wrote.
The filing says the top members of the House and Senate Judiciary committees will be able to review the Mar-a-Lago report at the Department of Justice (DOJ).
Nauta and de Oliveira opposed that in a later filing, citing risk the lawmakers could leak details of the report.
...
The filing comes amid a broader legal battle by Trump and his co-defendants to block Smith from releasing both sections of his two-volume report.
The trio first went to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who agreed Tuesday to block release of the whole report without waiting for a promised filing by Smith’s team.
...
Cannon also enjoined Smith from releasing the portion of the report dealing with Jan. 6, 2021, a matter that was overseen by a Washington, D.C.-based federal judge.
Trump, meanwhile, sent a letter to Garland urging him to fire Smith and leave the decision of whether to release the report to his own attorney general in the incoming administration.
Nauta, De Oliveira and the president-elect made nearly identical filings before the 11th Circuit, which is now weighing the matter.
Nauta's name should especially sound familiar, as Townhall has covered the intimidation tactics prosecutors used to get to such a defendant. It was a move that certainly drew the ire of House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) over the years, ever since this legal battle has been going on since the summer of 2023.
There's been news about Garland's plans to release Smith's report for months now, even after Trump won the election. Although Smith moved to drop all charges against Trump weeks after last November's election, he did so with prejudice, meaning another prosecutor could theoretically bring the charges back once Trump finishes his second term in 2029.
Such cases aren't the only ones brought against Trump, though. Judge Juan Merchan meanwhile scheduled Trump's sentencing in the hush money case brought by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, for which he was convicted of 34 felony cases on May 30 of last year, for this Friday, on January 10. Trump asked the U.S. Supreme Court earlier on Wednesday to block that, as Leah covered.