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Judge orders DOJ to respond to Trump co-defendants’ allegations about Smith report

Written by on January 11, 2025

Judge orders DOJ to respond to Trump co-defendants’ allegations about Smith report
Scott Olson/Getty Images

(WASHINGTON) — U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon is ordering the Justice Department to respond to arguments made by President-elect Donald Trump’s former co-defendants in his classified documents case by 10 a.m. Sunday.

Cannon wants the government to address whether anything in the first volume of special counsel Jack Smith’s report, which deals with Smith’s Jan 6 investigation, bears on any aspect of Trump’s co-defendants in the classified documents case.

The judge’s order immediately followed a filing from DOJ that repeatedly argued she had no further jurisdiction to continue to weigh in on the release of the first volume of Smith’s final report after the department successfully appealed her initial injunction overnight to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

The other motions — including Trump’s co-defendants’ motion to extend Cannon’s halt of the report’s public release — have not yet been ruled upon.

Attorneys for co-defendants Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira on Friday asked Cannon, who earlier this week temporarily blocked the report’s release while the matter was considered by the Eleventh Circuit, to extend her three-day restraining order prohibiting the report’s release.

The attorneys are seeking a hearing on U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland’s proposed plan to release the portion of the report covering Smith’s classified documents investigation to the ranking members and chairs of the House and Senate Judiciary committees.

If successful, the move could result in a further delay of the report’s release, potentially past Trump’s presidential inauguration on Jan. 20.

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 get the documents back. He later pleaded not guilty 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.

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