US judge permanently blocks release of report on Trump classified documents case

WASHINGTON - A US judge permanently barred the Justice Department on Feb 23 from releasing a prosecutor’s report on the

criminal case accusing President Donald Trump of unlawfully retaining classified documents

following his first term in office.

Florida-based US District Judge Aileen Cannon found that releasing the report would be a “manifest injustice” to the Republican president and two former associates who were charged alongside him because it would detail substantial allegations of criminal wrongdoing in a case that never reached a jury.

Ms Cannon, who Mr Trump appointed to the bench in 2020, in 2024 dismissed all the charges. Mr Trump was accused in the case pursued by Special Counsel Jack Smith of illegally storing documents related to US national defence, including the American nuclear programme, at his Mar-a-Lago social club and obstructing US government efforts to retrieve the material.

Ms Cannon found that Mr Smith had not been lawfully appointed by the Justice Department during Democratic former president Joe Biden’s administration.

Disclosure of Mr Smith’s report “would contravene basic notions of fairness and justice in the process, where no adjudication of guilt has been reached following initiation of criminal charges,” Ms Cannon wrote in Feb 23’s ruling.

The order means substantial information about one of the four criminal cases Mr Trump faced in his years out of office may not be disclosed to the public.

Trump attorney Kendra Wharton welcomed Ms Cannon’s order in a statement, adding that “any and all fruit of Smith’s poisonous tree” should “never see the light of day.”

Mr Trump and his two co-defendants, personal aide Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago manager Carlos de Oliveira, pleaded not guilty to all charges and argued the case was a politically motivated abuse of the legal system. They urged Ms Cannon to bar the release of the report, which details Mr Smith’s justification for seeking charges.

The Justice Department under Mr Trump supported those arguments, arguing the report was a confidential document.

“Judge Cannon’s ruling continues a troubling pattern of decisions that shield the president from public scrutiny and place secrecy above the public’s right to know,” said Ms Chioma Chukwu, executive director of American Oversight, a government accountability group that has sought disclosure of the report.

The Justice Department under Mr Biden dropped an attempt to revive the case against Mr Trump after he won the 2024 election.

Special counsels, who are appointed to lead certain politically sensitive investigations, are required to draft reports to the US attorney-general detailing their conclusions on whether to seek charges.

The Justice Department publicly released Mr Smith’s report detailing his other since-dismissed case against Mr Trump, which accused Mr Trump of plotting to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election.

Ms Cannon initially barred disclosure of the documents case report to Congress, citing the ongoing case against Mr Nauta and Mr de Oliveira. The Justice Department dropped charges against Mr Nauta and Mr de Oliveira after Mr Trump returned to office in 2025.

In Feb 23’s ruling, Ms Cannon also cited concerns about releasing confidential grand jury information and concluded that Mr Smith’s drafting of the report circumvented her order finding him unlawfully appointed. REUTERS