ATLANTA—The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University today asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit to reverse an order from Judge Aileen Cannon refusing to release Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report on President Trump’s alleged unlawful retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. The Institute also asks the Eleventh Circuit to order the release of the report. 

“There is no good reason for withholding this report from the public,” said Scott Wilkens, senior counsel at the Knight First Amendment  Institute. “The public has a right to the report under the First Amendment and common law, and the Freedom of Information Act requires its release as well.” 

In February of last year, the Institute filed a motion asking Judge Cannon, who presided over the Justice Department’s now-abandoned prosecution of President Trump, to lift her injunction prohibiting the Justice Department from releasing Smith’s report. The Institute also asked Judge Cannon to post the report on the court’s public docket, arguing that the First Amendment and common law give the public a right of access to it because it was submitted in connection with a criminal proceeding. After Judge Cannon failed to rule on the Institute’s request for 218 days, the Institute asked the Eleventh Circuit to intervene. That court held that Judge Cannon had unduly delayed the adjudication of the Institute’s motion and ordered her to rule within 60 days. Judge Cannon denied the Institute’s motion 11 days before the expiration of that period.

“This is an official Justice Department report that addresses alleged criminal activity by the nation’s highest official—it should have been released to the public months ago,” said Jameel Jaffer, the Knight Institute’s executive director. “The First Amendment has long been understood to require the release of records filed in connection with criminal trials. There is no exception for records that concern the president.”

In a separate filing today, the Institute informed Judge Cannon that she lacks jurisdiction to order the destruction of Jack Smith’s report, which President Trump’s co-defendants have asked her to do. (The Justice Department has also asked that the report be relegated to the “dustbin of history.”) The Institute argues that Judge Cannon has been divested of jurisdiction over issues relating to the report because the Institute’s appeal is now before the Eleventh Circuit. 

Read the Institute’s Eleventh Circuit brief here. 

Read the Institute’s motion filed with Judge Cannon here.

Read more about the case here.

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

For more information, contact: Adriana Lamirande, [email protected].