A federal appeals court upheld a judge’s ruling mandating a three-day wait to allow for additional appeals, but said Thursday that the Justice Department may publish a report on President-elect Donald Trump’s attempts to reverse his 2020 election defeat.
According to the decision, Trump may request that the Supreme Court prevent the publication of the special counsel Jack Smith report.
In a statement, a Trump spokesman criticized Smith without indicating whether the president-elect would appeal Thursday’s decision.
The Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision on Thursday to allow sentencing in Trump’s New York hush money case to proceed on Friday delivered him yet another setback.
Trump was charged with four counts in 2023 and 2024, including conspiracy to defraud the United States in relation to his attempts to rig the 2020 election, which resulted in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6. Due to a long-standing Justice Department rule that a sitting president cannot be charged, the case was dropped after his election.
Trump had entered a not guilty plea and has pledged to pardon an incalculable number of Jan. 6 offenders when he returns to office.
In a letter to Congress on Wednesday, Attorney General Merrick Garlands stated that if U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s order prohibiting the report’s distribution was overturned, he intended to make the election interference-related volume of Smith’s report publicly available. Cannon’s ruling, which required a short delay before its distribution, was upheld by the appeals court on Thursday.
While the proceedings against co-defendants Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira are still continuing, Garland has stated that he will not disclose volume two of the report, which was written by Smith and concentrated on Trump’s case involving secret documents.
“It is time for Joe Biden and Merrick Garland to do the right thing and put a final stop to the political weaponization of our justice system,” said Trump spokeswoman Steven Cheung in a statement Thursday evening.
In an interview conducted in October prior to his election, Trump, who has regularly attacked the special counsel, declared that he would dismiss him within two seconds of winning reelection.Smith and his colleagues intend to resign before Trump takes office on January 20, according to an NBC News report from November.