DOJ to release half of Trump special counsel report

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.

Who said what

The Justice Department disclosed Garland's decision in an appellate court filing "opposing Trump's effort to block Smith from releasing his final report altogether," Politico said.

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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What next?

On Smith's recommendation, prosecutors said, Garland is withholding the classified documents volume until the DOJ's ongoing prosecution of two Trump codefendants is concluded. That would push the decision on releasing the second volume to Trump's attorney general, meaning it will "never see the light of day," Jonathan Last said at The Bulwark.