President-elect Donald Trump engaged in an “unprecedented criminal effort to overturn the legitimate results” of the 2020 election “to retain power,” former Special Counsel Jack Smith wrote in his final report on his investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, as Attorney General Merrick Garland made the report’s first volume public early on Tuesday after Trump-appointed Judge Aileen Cannon rejected a last-minute bid by the President-elect to block it.
The Justice Department released the first volume of Smith’s final report Tuesday, which covers Smith’s now-dismissed criminal case into Trump and his allies’ wide-ranging efforts to overturn the 2020 election, making the document public following a court battle to keep it hidden.
Development on the Release
The volume is one of two in Smith’s final report—the other covers the investigation into Trump allegedly withholding White House documents—but is the only one that was expected to be released, as Garland has said he doesn’t want the volume on the documents case to be released publicly while Trump’s co-defendants in the case are still being prosecuted.
This is a developing story.
Chief Critic
Trump pleaded not guilty to the charges against him in the 2020 election case and has denied any wrongdoing. The president-elect and his lawyers strongly opposed Smith’s report being made public, filing briefs in court arguing for it to be blocked and sending a letter to Garland asking him to keep the document hidden.
Will The Volume On The Documents Case Be Released?
Garland has so far refused to release the volume of the report on the documents case while the prosecution against Nauta and de Oliveira remains ongoing, though he is trying to make the report available for select members of Congress to view privately.
Senate Democrats' Push
Senate Democrats are pushing Garland to preserve all the evidence from Smith’s investigations into Trump, given the possibility the incoming Trump administration could bury the information over its criticism of the president-elect.
