DOJ continues to press for release of Jack Smith's report on Trump investigations

In a series of court filings over the weekend, the Justice Department continued to press for the release of special counsel Jack Smith's final report on his investigations into Donald Trump.

After Trump's co-defendants in his classified documents case asked U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon to block the release of Volume Two of the report, which covers that case, Cannon last week temporarily blocked the release of both that volume and Volume One of the report, which covers Smith's Jan. 6 election interference case against Trump.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, who is seeking to release the Jan. 6 volume of the report to the public -- and provide the classified documents portion of the report to select members of Congress -- told Cannon in a Justice Department court filing Sunday that the DOJ does not believe anything in the Jan. 6 volume has any direct or indirect bearing on the evidence or charges related to Trump's two former co-defendants as laid out in the classified documents volume.

The government said in their filing that the Jan. 6 volume makes two references to the classified documents investigation, but those references do not mention any conduct, evidence or charges against the co-defendants. The government told Cannon they will provide her with those references for review in a sealed court filing.

Cannon, who last year dismissed the classified documents case after deeming Smith's appointment unconstitutional, had asked the DOJ for that information after the Justice Department, in a court filing Saturday, argued she had no further jurisdiction to continue to weigh in on the release of the Jan. 6. volume of Smith's report after the DOJ successfully appealed her initial injunction to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

Cannon's injunction prohibiting the report's release was set to expire on Sunday, but attorneys for Trump's co-defendants -- his longtime aide Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago staffer Carlos De Oliveira -- asked Cannon on Friday to extend the injunction so she can hold a hearing on Garland's plans to release the report.

Cannon has yet to rule on that request.

Trump pleaded not guilty in 2023 to 40 criminal counts related to his handling of classified materials after leaving the White House, after prosecutors said he repeatedly refused to return hundreds of documents containing classified information and took steps to thwart the government's efforts to retrieve them from his Mar-a-Lago estate. The former president, along with Nauta and De Oliveira, pleaded not guilty in a superseding indictment to allegedly attempting to delete surveillance footage at Mar-a-Lago.

Trump also pleaded not guilty in 2023 to separate charges of undertaking a "criminal scheme" to overturn the results of the 2020 election in an effort to subvert democracy and remain in power.

Both cases were dismissed following Trump's reelection in November due to a longstanding Justice Department policy prohibiting the prosecution of a sitting president.

Smith resigned as special prosecutor on Friday after wrapping up the cases and submitting his report to Garland.