WASHINGTON (AP) — Special counsel Jack Smith said Tuesday that his team was finalizing a two-volume report on its investigations into President-elect Donald Trump and that at least one volume of it could be released by the Justice Department as early as Friday.
Details of the Report
The report is expected to describe charging decisions made in separate investigations by Smith into Trump’s hoarding of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate and his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the run-up to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Trump was charged alongside two codefendants in the classified documents case, which was dismissed in July by a Trump-appointed judge who concluded that Smith’s appointment was illegal. Trump was also charged in an election interference case that was significantly narrowed by a Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity.
Legal Challenges
Lawyers for Trump, including Todd Blanche, who was picked by Trump to serve as his deputy attorney general, urged Attorney General Merrick Garland to block the release of the report and to remove Smith from his position “promptly” or defer the release of the report to the incoming attorney general.
Smith’s team responded to these challenges by stating their intention to submit the report to Garland by the afternoon, with the volume pertaining to the classified documents investigation not being made public before 10 a.m. Friday. It is presumed that both volumes of Smith’s report would be released simultaneously.
Justice Department Regulations
Justice Department regulations call for special counsels appointed by the attorney general to submit a confidential report at the conclusion of their investigations. Garland has so far made public in their entirety the reports produced by special counsels who operated under his watch, including Robert Hur’s report on President Joe Biden’s handling of classified information and John Durham’s report on the FBI’s Russian election interference investigation.
Special Counsel, Jack Smith, President-elect Donald Trump, Investigations, Report, Justice Department
