A U.S. federal judge on Monday permanently barred the Justice Department from releasing a prosecutor’s report on the criminal case charging President Donald Trump with illegally storing classified documents after he left office.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who was appointed to the bench by Trump in 2020, ruled that releasing the report would be a “manifest injustice” to Trump and two former associates who were charged with him.
Cannon had earlier dismissed all charges in the case in 2024, before it was presented to a jury.
The case was brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith, who charged Trump with illegally storing documents related to national defense, including those related to the U.S. nuclear program, at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
Trump was also charged with obstructing the government’s efforts to retrieve the documents.
Cannon’s decision centered on the legality of Smith’s appointment within the Justice Department during the Democratic former President Joe Biden administration.
She determined that the special counsel had not been lawfully appointed and that the release of the report would be in violation of the principles of fairness and due process.
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“Disclosure of Smith’s report would contravene basic notions of fairness and justice in the process, where no adjudication of guilt has been reached following initiation of criminal charges,” Cannon wrote.
The ruling blocks public access to important information regarding one of the four criminal charges Trump was facing after leaving office.
Trump’s lawyers were pleased with the ruling. In a statement, Kendra Wharton said the ruling ensured that “any and all fruit of Smith’s poisonous tree” would “never see the light of day.”
Trump and his two co-defendants in the case, former personal aide Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago manager Carlos de Oliveira, had pleaded not guilty to all charges.
They claimed that the investigation was politically motivated and asked Cannon to prevent the release of the report, which detailed Smith’s reasons for pursuing the charges.
The Justice Department during Trump’s administration had also supported the suppression of the report, calling it a “confidential internal document.”
Criticism came from advocacy groups. Chioma Chukwu, the executive director of American Oversight, a government accountability group that had sought the release of the report, said, “Judge Cannon’s decision is part of a disturbing trend of rulings that protect the president from public accountability and prioritize secrecy over the public’s right to know.”
The Justice Department, led by Biden, gave up on trying to revive the case after Trump won the 2024 presidential election.
Special counsels are appointed in the U.S. to investigate cases that are politically sensitive. They are mandated by law to file reports with the attorney general on the reasons for any decision to pursue criminal charges.
Just before Trump’s return to office 13 months ago, the Justice Department made public the report by Smith in another dismissed case against Trump, which charged him with trying to reverse the outcome of the 2020 election.
Cannon had earlier withheld the case report of the documents to Congress because of the cases against Nauta and de Oliveira.
The charges were later dismissed following Trump’s inauguration last year.
In her Monday decision, Cannon also relied on the sensitivity of releasing grand jury information. She ruled that Smith had circumvented her earlier ruling on his illegal appointment.
The suppressed report, if it had come out, would have outlined the evidence and reasoning used by Smith in prosecuting Trump and his entourage.
The case is, however, still important as part of the overall legal inquiry Trump was subjected to during his time out of office, together with other investigations and prosecutions that have attracted widespread attention.
Trump’s legal counsel has claimed that the government’s prosecution of the case was irregular in terms of normal Justice Department procedures.
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Federal prosecutors had also indicated that the documents in question at Mar-a-Lago were classified and posed a potential risk to national security if mishandled.
There was no trial in the case, and the charges were officially dismissed by Cannon before the case could go to trial.
The judge’s ruling has therefore ensured that the prosecutorial report, which might have impacted the public perception of the case, remains suppressed indefinitely.
The Justice Department has yet to state whether it will appeal the ruling made by Cannon.
However, legal experts in the federal government have pointed out that the ruling has highlighted the “complicated intersection of special counsel authority, presidential appointments, and public access to prosecutorial findings in high-profile cases.”