Garland Wants to Release Report on Trump Election Interference Case
Attorney General Merrick Garland wants to release Volume One of special counsel Jack Smith’s report with evidence supposedly showing how President-elect Donald Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election.
The report would go to Congress.
However, Garland will not release Volume Two of Smith’s report concerning the case of the FBI invading Mar-a-Lago.
IMPORTANT: The story has nothing to do with Trump. His former co-defendants, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, filed an emergency motion to prevent anyone from releasing the final report.
According to the filing, Nauta and De Oliveira do not appear in Volume One. It’s about the alleged election interference, “an unrelated prosecution brought by the Special Counsel in Washington, D.C.”
“Volume Two concerns the criminal investigation, indictments, and proceedings in the Southern District of Florida against defendants Nauta and De Oliveira, as well as former defendant and now President-elect Trump,” the DOJ continued.
The department added: “The Attorney General’s determination not to authorize the public release of Volume Two fully addresses the harms that defendants seek to avoid in their emergency motion.”
Here is what led to Garland’s filing.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon of the U.S. District for the Southern District of Florida ruled that Garland and Smith cannot share any part of the report until three days after the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit decides on the similar “Emergency Motion, unless the Eleventh Circuit orders otherwise.”
It went to Cannon because, as noted above, the report involving Nauta and De Oliveira is based in her Florida court.
That does not mean Trump hasn’t fought to stop the DOJ from releasing any of Smith’s reports.
Garland notified the Eleventh Circuit that he had prepared to make the report public because any pushback from Trump is moot “since the President-elect is no longer a defendant in any Special Counsel matter.”
Smith dropped both cases after Trump demolished Vice President Kamala Harris on November 5.
Nauta and De Oliveira filed the emergency motion because making it public would risk “prejudice” against them if the “Court reverses the dismissal of their indictments.
Garland tried to put their fears to ease, which would make me laugh if I didn’t know that the DOJ loves to go after political opponents:
But that prediction is incorrect. Attorney General Garland is committed to ensuring the integrity of the Department’s criminal prosecutions. Considering the risk of prejudice to defendants Nauta’s and De Oliveira’s criminal case, the Attorney General has agreed with the Special Counsel’s recommendation that Volume Two of the Final Report should not be publicly released while those cases remain pending. See 28 C.F.R. § 600.9(c). There is therefore no risk of prejudice to defendants and no basis for an injunction against the Attorney General.
Garland continued:
Volume One, the Election Case, concerns an unrelated prosecution brought by the Special Counsel in Washington, D.C and, accordingly, Volume One does not refer to either Nauta or De Oliveira or describe the evidence or charges against them. Volume Two concerns the criminal investigation, indictments, and proceedings in the Southern District of Florida against defendants Nauta and De Oliveira, as well as former defendant and now President-elect Trump. The Attorney General’s determination not to authorize the public release of Volume Two fully addresses the harms that defendants seek to avoid in their emergency motion.
Garland “intends to make Volume Two of the Final Report available for in camera review by the Chairmen and Ranking Members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, pursuant to restrictions to protect confidentiality.”
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