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Donald Trump is taking legal action to prevent the public from accessing a report compiled by Special Counsel Jack Smith, which details the investigation that ultimately resulted in criminal charges being filed against the former president, who now aims to reclaim the office in the upcoming election.
After Trump triumphed in the November presidential election, both cases were dismissed. Nonetheless, Special Counsel Jack Smith has remained committed to his investigation, now finalizing a report for Attorney General Merrick Garland, encapsulating the key conclusions of his inquiry.
Trump, 78 years old, faced allegations of plotting to invalidate the 2020 election results, in which Joe Biden triumphed, and of unlawfully taking a considerable quantity of highly sensitive documents after leaving the White House.
The cases never came to trial, however, and Smith dropped them after the election citing a long-standing Justice Department policy of not indicting or prosecuting a sitting president.
Trump’s attorneys, in a letter to Garland on Monday, demanded that Smith “terminate all efforts toward the preparation and release” of his final report on the cases against Trump, who is to be sworn in as the 47th US president on January 20.
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“Rather than acknowledging, as he must, President Trump’s complete exoneration, Smith now seeks to disseminate an extrajudicial ‘Final Report’ to perpetuate his false and discredited accusations,” they said.
“Smith’s proposed plan for releasing a report is unlawful, undertaken in bad faith, and contrary to the public interest,” they added.
Releasing the report “would be nothing more than a lawless political stunt, designed to politically harm President Trump,” his attorneys said.
Two of the attorneys who sent the letter to Garland — Todd Blanche and Emil Bove — have been named by the president-elect to high-ranking positions in his Justice Department.
