Trump Mar-a-Lago co-defendants ask Cannon to further block Smith report
President-elect Trump’s two co-defendants in the Mar-a-Lago case are asking U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon to further stay any release of special counsel Jack Smith’s final report.
If successful, the move would likely run out the clock, tying the matter up in court with little time to spare before Trump’s inauguration.
Trump and his co-defendants have turned to two different courts to seek to block both volumes of Smith’s report dealing with the documents probe and his election interference investigation.
While the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals denied valet Walt Nauta and property manager Carlos de Oliveira’s bid to block release of the report, the court left in place a ruling by Cannon that barred the report's release for another three days after a ruling from the appeals court.
Smith’s team before dawn filed a motion asking Cannon to waive the three-day period, likewise asking the 11th Circuit to override that directive from the lower court.
But lawyers for Trump’s two co-defendants wrote Friday that in failing to address the three-day waiting period in Cannon’s ruling and directing prosecutors to challenge that timeline with the Florida judge, the appeals court was greenlighting additional proceedings before Cannon.
“The Government literally asked the Eleventh Circuit to vacate the January 7, 2025 Order, and the Eleventh Circuit refused to do so. For practical purposes, Defendants argument in the Eleventh Circuit that the matter belongs initially in this Court prevailed,” they wrote.
“This matter was properly left to the sound discretion of this Court.”
The attorneys ask Cannon to extend her temporary restraining order to allow for additional legal briefs and a hearing.
Attorney General Merrick Garland has already said he only plans to release the Jan. 6 volume of his report, holding back the Mar-a-Lago volume as to not impact the ongoing prosecution of Nauta and de Oliveira.
If Cannon agrees to do so, it would likely block the release of the Jan. 6 report as Trump is set to be sworn in in just 10 days. His Justice Department is expecting to drop the prosecution against the two men and shelve Smith’s two-volume report.
Cannon has previously agreed to hold hearings on matters others judges would likely resolve only through paper filings, and the case was plodding along before she dismissed it entirely.
Cannon determined Smith was unlawfully appointed and threw out the case, something prosecutors say undermined 50 years of precedent on special counsel appointments.