Attorney General Merrick Garland has submitted to Congress a portion of former special counsel Jack Smith’s final report on his investigations into President-elect Donald Trump after a court order blocking its release expired at midnight Tuesday, according to a source familiar with the matter.
In his report, Smith wrote that his office began its prosecution of Trump “because it concluded that the admissible evidence would be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction.”
The report was sent to Congress and made public shortly after following days of legal wrangling over whether it — or part of it — should be disclosed to the public. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon on Monday declined a request from Walt Nauta, an aide to Trump, and Carlos de Oliveira, former property manager at Mar-a-Lago, to block volume one of Smith’s final report from becoming public.
That portion pertains to Trump’s alleged efforts to subvert the transfer of power after the 2020 election. Volume two delves into allegations the president-elect unlawfully held onto classified documents after the end of his first term in 2021 and obstructed the Justice Department’s investigation.
In a letter to Garland accompanying the report, Smith defended his decision to pursue charges against the president-elect and rejected Trump’s accusations that his actions were influenced by the top ranks of the Justice Department.
“To all who know me well, the claim from Mr. Trump that my decisions as a prosecutor were influenced or directed by the Biden administration or other political actors is, in a word, laughable,” Smith wrote.
Smith used the first volume of his report to defend his work and investigative findings, alleging, “The throughline of all of Mr. Trump’s criminal efforts was deceit — knowingly false claims of election.”
Much of the 137-page volume recounts information that has already been made public through court filings during the course of the now-dismissed case against Trump filed in Washington, D.C., and it includes images of the violence that transpired at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of Trump’s supporters breached the building in an effort to stop Congress from reaffirming Mr. Biden’s win.
The section involving the president-elect’s alleged efforts to stay in power after losing to President Biden in 2020 was also made available to the public after midnight Tuesday.
Cannon issued a temporary order last week that temporarily blocked the Justice Department from making the report public, after which a federal appeals court declined to stop its release. The district judge’s order expired at 12 a.m. Tuesday.
Garland has said he wouldn’t publicly release the second part of the report because proceedings involving Nauta and de Oliveira are ongoing.
The fast-moving legal battle over Smith’s report transpired over the past week and has played out days before Trump is to be sworn in for a second term. If the battle had continued until the president-elect’s return to the White House on Jan. 20, the special counsel’s report would not have been likely to be publicly released.
Smith resigned his position as special counsel last Friday, and Justice Department prosecutors have taken over the ongoing matters arising from his investigations. Smith’s two probes led to separate prosecutions of Trump, but they came to a close because of his victory in the November presidential election.
As is required for special counsels, Smith drafted and submitted a final report to the attorney general last week. Garland has vowed to make public all special counsel reports completed while he is attorney general, and has so far followed through on that pledge, including after the investigation into President Biden’s handling of classified documents. He released the special counsel’s final report on the investigation into Hunter Biden’s tax evasion and gun possession cases Monday night.
Last week, Garland informed Congress that Smith had finished his investigation and submitted the two-volume report. It’s unclear whether the second volume, related to the classified documents case, will ever be disclosed to the American people.
Smith’s tenure as special counsel began in November 2022, when Garland tapped him to take over the ongoing investigations involving Trump. The president-elect repeatedly vowed to fire the special counsel when he returned to the White House.
Federal grand juries returned two indictments against the president-elect, marking the first time a former president was accused of federal crimes. In the 2020 election case, brought in Washington, D.C., Trump faced four charges, including conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding. In the documents case, the president-elect was charged with 40 counts, including willfully retaining national defense information and conspiracy to obstruct justice.
Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges and accused Smith of mounting a politically charged investigation against him because he was Mr. Biden’s political rival.
The 2020 election case landed before the Supreme Court with Trump’s claim he was entitled to presidential immunity that shielded him from prosecution, since the conduct that gave rise to the charges occurred during his first term in office.
In July, the high court issued a landmark ruling finding that former presidents cannot face charges for official acts, but were not immune from prosecution for unofficial actions. The decision led to further proceedings before the federal district court overseeing the case.
But the charges were dismissed in November following Trump’s election to a second term, as longstanding Justice Department policy forbids the prosecution of a sitting president.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
