United States officials have announced plans to release only part of a report detailing federal investigations into President-elect Donald Trump, following a court decision to block some of the findings.
On Wednesday, the Department of Justice indicated that the published report would focus on Special Counsel Jack Smith’s probe into Trump’s efforts to undo the results of the 2020 election.
It would not, however, delve into a second federal investigation that looked at Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents while out of office, following the end of his first term in 2021.
The announcement means that certain insight into classified documents investigation is unlikely to reach the public in the foreseeable future.
Trump is set to take office for his second term in less than two weeks, on January 20, at which point the Justice Department will fall under his control.
The classified documents investigation was once considered the most threatening to Trump, who has been embroiled in a sprawling web of legal cases. He is the first US president to be convicted of felony crimes.
Trump, however, has denied wrongdoing in all the cases. He has repeatedly criticised the investigations as politically motivated and “fake”.
While the classified documents section of the report will not be unveiled to the public, the Justice Department has indicated it would make its contents available to the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees.
Those members must agree not to make the section public while legal proceedings over the classified documents case continue.
“This limited disclosure will further the public interest in keeping congressional leadership apprised of a significant matter within the Department while safeguarding defendants’ interest,” the Justice Department wrote in its court filings.
Those proceedings were at the crux of the decision to nix the publication of the classified documents section of the report.
On Tuesday, a federal judge, Aileen Cannon, temporarily blocked its release, citing the continuing legal fight.
While the charges against Trump in the classified documents case were dropped in November, his two co-defendants — Trump employees Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira — continue to face the possibility of a criminal trial.
Nauta, an aide, and De Oliveira, a maintenance employee at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, have been accused of helping the president-elect withhold and conceal the classified documents, despite a subpoena to turn them over.
Defence lawyers have argued that releasing the report would improperly interfere with their right to a fair hearing.
The Justice Department has not yet indicated when it would publish the other volume of the report, which focused on the allegations of election interference.
Smith filed to drop the charges in that case in November as well, citing Trump’s impending return to office. He cited Justice Department policy against prosecuting a sitting president.
That case centred on Trump’s actions in the lead-up and after the November 2020 election, when the Republican incumbent faced Democrat Joe Biden for the presidency.
Trump ultimately lost. But Smith and his team of federal prosecutors have argued Trump entered into a conspiracy to defraud the US by overturning his defeat and disrupting official proceedings to certify the correct result.
Trump has continued to falsely claim that he won the 2020 race and that his victory was denied by widespread voter fraud.
In Wednesday’s court filing, the Justice Department said that Attorney General Merrick Garland had a “clear” authority to release the volume of the report centred on the election interference charges.
“Indeed, with respect to Volume One of the Final Report, defendants are hardly differently situated than any other member of the public,” the department said.
Garland, a member of the administration of outgoing President Biden, appointed Smith as special counsel in 2022 to avoid any conflict of interest a political appointee might have leading the case.
Justice Department regulations require Smith to submit a final report to Garland.
The attorney general has said he will make public any special counsel reports he receives: He previously released a report written by Special Counsel Robert Hur into Biden’s handling of classified documents outside of public office.
Trump and his defence team, however, have fought to stop the release. At a Tuesday news conference at Mar-a-Lago, Trump blasted Smith as a “disgrace”.
“He wanted to do a report just before I take office probably, so he’ll do like a 500-page report, and it’ll be a fake report, just like the investigation was a fake investigation,” Trump said. “Why should he be allowed to write a fake report?”