Aileen Cannon denounces ‘brazen’ special counsel for compiling report after she had dismissed case in 2024
A federal judge appointed by Donald Trump permanently barred the justice department on Monday from releasing the former special counsel Jack Smith’s report on the president’s mishandling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club after his first term.
The ruling by US district judge Aileen Cannon marked the latest effort to stop the report from being sent to Congress or otherwise becoming publicly available.
In scathing language, Cannon condemned Smith for what she called a “brazen stratagem” of compiling a report even after she had dismissed the case on grounds that he was unlawfully appointed, a decision that flew in the face of historical precedent.
“To say this chronology represents, at a minimum, a concerning breach of spirit of the dismissal order is an understatement, if not an outright violation of it,” she wrote in her 15-page decision.
