FORT PIERCE, Fla.—Judge Aileen Cannon today rejected an effort by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University to compel the release of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report about President Trump’s alleged unlawful retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago after he left office in 2021. The court also declined to  lift an injunction prohibiting the Department of Justice from releasing the report.

“This is an extraordinarily significant report about one of the most important criminal investigations in American history,” said Scott Wilkens, senior counsel at the Knight First Amendment Institute. “There is no legitimate reason for the report’s continued suppression and the First Amendment requires its release. We will appeal this ruling.”

In February, the Knight Institute filed a motion to intervene in the case arguing that the public has a First Amendment right to review the report, which concerns allegations of grave criminal conduct by the nation’s highest-ranking official. In September, the Institute asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit to compel Judge Cannon to rule on its motion to intervene, which had been pending for more than six months. On November 3, the appeals court found that the lower court had unduly delayed its ruling on the motion and said that it would hold the Knight Institute’s petition for 60 days with the expectation that Judge Cannon would issue a ruling within that time frame. That period was set to expire on January 2, 2026. 

Read today’s decision here.

Read more about the case here.

Lawyers on the case include Wilkens, Jameel Jaffer, Alex Abdo, and Noah Kim for the Knight First Amendment Institute, and David Buckner for Buckner & Miles.

For more information, contact: Lorraine Kenny, [email protected].