US Justice Department will not publicly release all of special counsel’s report on Trump

The Justice Department said Wednesday that it will release special counsel Jack Smith’s findings on Donald Trump’s efforts to undo the results of the 2020 presidential election but will keep under wraps for now the rest of the report focused on the president-elect’s hoarding of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

The revelation was made in a filing to a federal appeal court that was considering a defence request to block the release of the two-volume report while charges remain pending against two Trump co-defendants in the Florida case accusing the Republican former president and current president-elect of illegally holding classified documents. Aileen Cannon, the Trump-appointed judge presiding over the classified documents case, granted the request on Tuesday, issuing a temporary block on the report.

The Justice Department said it would proceed with plans to release the first of two volumes centred on the election interference case but would make the classified documents section of the report available only to the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees for their private review as long as the case against Trump’s co-defendants – Trump valet Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira – is ongoing.

“This limited disclosure will further the public interest in keeping congressional leadership apprised of a significant matter within the Department while safeguarding defendants’ interests,” the filing said.

It was not immediately clear when the election interference report might be released. The filing asks the Atlanta-based US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit to reverse Cannon’s order that appeared to at least temporarily halt the release of the entire report.

In its filing, the Justice Department said that the attorney general’s authority to publicly release the election interference section of the special counsel’s report is “clear” and that Trump’s co-defendants have no legal argument to block the disclosure of a section that has nothing to do with them.