DOJ to release half of Trump special counsel report

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland seen during a press conference

(Image credit: Jefferson Siegel-Pool / Getty Images)

published 9 January 2025

What happened

Attorney General Merrick Garland intends to release one volume of special counsel Jack Smith's report on his criminal investigations of President-elect Donald Trump but pause the other half, the Justice Department said Wednesday. The portion on Trump's efforts to subvert the 2020 election would be released publicly while the volume on his retention of classified documents would be available only to a few members of Congress.

Smith's requisite final report was meant to be his "valedictory word" on his efforts to hold Trump "accountable for a remarkable array of criminal allegations," The New York Times said. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who oversaw then dismissed the classified documents case in July after repeatedly "issuing unusual rulings" in Trump's favor, blocked the report's release on Tuesday, a decision that "raised eyebrows among several legal experts who said she had no legal authority to issue the injunction."

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Rafi Schwartz has worked as a politics writer at The Week since 2022, where he covers elections, Congress and the White House. He was previously a contributing writer with Mic focusing largely on politics, a senior writer with Splinter News, a staff writer for Fusion's news lab, and the managing editor of Heeb Magazine, a Jewish life and culture publication. Rafi's work has appeared in Rolling Stone, GOOD and The Forward, among others.