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President-elect Donald Trump and his former co-defendants in the Florida classified documents case launched an effort Monday to block the release of a final report by special counsel Jack Smith that also addresses the election interference case.
Both cases against Trump have been dismissed.
Lawyers for defendants Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira filed a motion Monday night asking U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon to block Smith, who prosecuted the case, from issuing his report. They cited the judge’s previous ruling that Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional.
“The Final Report promises to be a one-sided, slanted report, relying nearly exclusively on evidence presented to a grand jury and subject to all requisite protections—and which is known to Smith only as a result of his unconstitutional appointment—in order to serve a singular purpose: convincing the public that everyone Smith charged is guilty of the crimes charged,” the four lawyers wrote.
On Tuesday, Cannon ultimately put a temporary hold on the release of the classified documents report.
Nauta and De Oliveira separately asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit to block release of Smith’s report.
A filing from Trump’s team on Tuesday indicated that according to the special counsel’s office, the president-elect’s lawyers have known since Dec. 11 that Smith was drafting a confidential report. The filing also indicated that the two volumes of the report include one on the classified documents case and one on the election interference case.
A senior law enforcement official told NBC News that the Justice Department has concluded it likely cannot release the classified documents portion of Smith’s special counsel report, because of a local federal rule in the southern district of Florida prohibiting the release of information about pending cases. The rule was raised in the motion filed by Trump’s co-defendants.
Defense lawyers asked Cannon on Monday to hold a hearing and rule on their motion to block the report’s release by Friday, saying they believe the release of the report is “imminent.”
Trump’s lawyers, meanwhile, sent a letter urging Attorney General Merrick Garland to stop Smith from releasing the report. In the letter, Trump’s lawyers called Smith an “out-of-control private citizen unconstitutionally posing as a prosecutor” aiming to politically harm Trump.
“Accordingly, because Smith has proposed an unlawful course of action, you must countermand his plan and remove him promptly. If Smith is not removed, then the handling of his report should be deferred to President Trump’s incoming attorney general, consistent with the expressed will of the People,” they wrote.
Trump’s lawyers said they reviewed a two-volume draft copy of Smith’s report at the special counsel’s office in Washington, D.C., over the weekend.
In his response to the emergency motion, Smith wrote that his office is working to finalize “a two-volume confidential report to the Attorney General explaining the Special Counsel’s prosecution decisions.” He said that it would be Garland who decides whether any portion is released to the public and that one volume “pertains to this case.”
Smith said his office won’t transmit that volume to Garland before 1 p.m. ET Tuesday. He also said Garland “has not yet determined how to handle the report volume pertaining to this case, about which the parties were conferring at the time the defendants filed the Motion, but the Department can commit that the Attorney General will not release that volume to the public, if he does at all,” before 10 a.m. Friday.
NBC News has reported that Smith and his team plan to resign before Trump takes office on Jan. 20.
The Justice Department charged Trump in Florida with mishandling classified documents after he left office. Cannon dismissed the case in July, saying Smith’s appointment was illegal. Trump had pleaded not guilty.
Smith appealed the dismissal, but the case was upended by Trump’s election in November, because of the Justice Department’s long-standing policy not to prosecute sitting presidents. An appeals court later agreed to dismiss the case against Trump at Smith’s request.
Smith was also forced to wind down the election interference case against Trump after indicting him in 2023 in connection with his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. A judge in November agreed to dismiss that case, too, at Smith’s request.
Federal prosecutors are still appealing Cannon’s dismissal of the charges against Nauta and De Oliveira.
Daniel Barnes reports for NBC News, based in Washington.
Raquel Coronell Uribe is a breaking news reporter.
Rebecca Shabad is a politics reporter for NBC News based in Washington.
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