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Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee urged Attorney General Merrick Garland to release the rest of special counsel Jack Smith’s report on President-elect Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents even if it means dismissing charges against his co-defendants.
Democrats on the panel, led by ranking member Jamie Raskin, of Maryland, said in a letter to Garland that Americans have a “right to know” how the second part of Smith’s report details the charges against Trump: that he willfully retained national defense information after he left office and then conspired with two aides at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida to obstruct officials from retrieving the records.
“As Attorney General, it is incumbent upon you to take all necessary steps to ensure the report is released before the end of your tenure, including, if necessary, by simply dismissing the remaining criminal charges against Mr. Trump’s co-conspirators, Waltine Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira,” they wrote in the letter released Thursday.
Garland has said he wouldn’t make the second volume of Smith’s report, focused on the classified documents case, public while the charges against Nauta and De Oliveira are still being prosecuted.
Democratic lawmakers said in their letter that any concerns that dismissing the case could enable further corruption “are outweighed by the many indications that Mr. Trump will simply end the prosecutions against his co-conspirators upon taking office anyway and then instruct his DOJ to permanently bury this report.”
The Justice Department declined to comment Thursday on the letter.
The classified documents case against Trump was dropped after he won the election, with Smith citing a long-standing Justice Department policy of not prosecuting a sitting president. Trump had pleaded not guilty and denied any wrongdoing.
Smith resigned Friday after having led a pair of federal probes into Trump’s handling of classified documents and his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, which resulted in indictments but no trials.
The first volume of his final report was released this week. It said that Trump “inspired his supporters to commit acts of physical violence” when the U.S. Capitol was attacked on Jan. 6, 2021, and that he knowingly promoted false claims about election fraud after he lost the 2020 presidential race.
Over the past year, Garland has released several high-profile reports drafted by special counsels he appointed, including Robert Hur’s report on President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents and David Weiss’ report on Hunter Biden’s tax and gun charges.
On the campaign trail, Trump vowed to prosecute his political opponents during a second term. Senate Democrats on Wednesday grilled Pam Bondi, Trump’s pick for attorney general, about whether she would pursue those efforts at his behest at a confirmation hearing. Bondi said she wouldn’t politicize the office of attorney general or “target people simply because of their political affiliation.”
Zoë Richards is a politics reporter for NBC News.
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