'Another layer of suppression': First Amendment groups ask appeals court to fast-track their long-delayed appeal of Judge Cannon's order burying Mar-a-Lago report on Trump

Public advocacy groups are urging a federal court of appeals to fast-track their bid to unseal the second volume of former special counsel Jack Smith's final report on his criminal investigations into President Donald Trump.

Late last year, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who was appointed by Trump during his first term, issued two orders related to the long-delayed but still-lingering dispute over the second volume.

In the first order, Cannon flatly denied efforts to intervene lodged by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and transparency-focused nonprofit American Oversight. In her second order, however, Cannon acknowledged "any former or current party to this action" may move "for leave to intervene, if warranted, and/or from timely seeking appropriate relief before that deadline."

In the intervening months, many parties have had a lot to say about Cannon's efforts. While Trump and the U.S. Department of Justice weighed in to commend the judge directly for keeping the report under seal, the 45th and 47th president's former co-defendants told Cannon "all copies" of the second volume should simply be destroyed.

The groups, undeterred and unable to file on the original docket, went directly to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit and requested mandamus relief to stay proceedings at the district court pending the resolution of their two separate appeals filed last year.

On Feb. 23, Cannon aimed to kibosh the process, permanently blocking the current DOJ and any subsequent administrations from releasing the second volume – but stopping short of destroying it. That same day, Cannon denied another motion to intervene filed by the Knight Institute and American Oversight without comment.

At this stage in the overarching controversy, there are various motions in various associated cases, though not all are competing. Specifically, there are two 11th Circuit cases: in one case, the public advocacy groups are the petitioners and the government is the respondent; in the other case, the parties are exactly reversed.

On March 5, the groups asked the 11th Circuit to consolidate the disparate appeals "because they arise from the same underlying proceeding" in the name of "judicial economy" and the parties' interests and because they "present the same core legal questions."

Here's how the groups want to ask those questions:

(1) whether the district court erred in holding that Appellants lack standing to seek rescission of the district court injunctions preventing Appellants from vindicating their statutory rights under FOIA; (2) whether those injunctions should be vacated; (3) whether the district court erred in holding that the Knight Institute lacks standing to intervene to assert the common law and First Amendment right of access to Volume II; and (4) whether the district court erred in holding that the Knight Institute does not have a First Amendment or common law right of access to Volume II.

But March was two months ago – and since then, very little has happened. Or, rather, all that has happened is a slowdown.

"In the nearly eight weeks since, no further filings have been made in either appeal," the latest motion reads. "Under [an] Eleventh Circuit Rule…the filing of the motion to consolidate after Appellants filed their opening briefs in [one case] automatically postponed the due date for Appellees' response briefs 'until the court rules on such motion.'"

In other words, the motion to consolidate slowed down the schedule in the older case, resetting several upcoming deadlines.

From the new motion, at length:

The result is that the appeal this Court ordered expedited on January 30, 2026 has not advanced for nearly two months, and the second appeal—which raises the same core legal questions—has not gotten off the ground at all. Each additional week the motion to consolidate remains pending pushes oral argument further into the future and prolongs the suppression of Volume II. The rights of timely access on which these appeals turn necessarily encompass the right of timely adjudication of access claims…

Now, the groups want the 11th Circuit to speed things along.

On one hand, of course, the motion to consolidate was the plaintiffs' choice and they might have to live with the resulting pace of litigation after asking the court to roll the cases together. But, anticipating that line of argument, the groups say Cannon's order to bury the second volume necessitated their second appeal. And, logically, the groups say, the two appeals needed to be considered in one fell swoop.

"The legal questions remain the same; the factual record remains uncomplicated; and the public's interest in prompt access to Volume II has, if anything, intensified since January, with the district court's February 23 entry of a permanent injunction adding another layer of suppression that Appellants now seek to challenge," the new motion argues.

And, the groups point out, the 11th Circuit already previously granted a motion to expedite in the earlier case, in January. The new motion sees the prospect of a second bite at the fast-action apple as pro forma in light of the proceedings since Cannon's latest order.

"The grounds the Court credited in granting expedition in January 2026 apply with equal or greater force now," the motion goes on. "The need for expedition does not diminish merely because a procedural prerequisite—consolidation—remains to be resolved. To the contrary: it is the absence of a ruling on consolidation that is now standing in the way of the expedited disposition this Court already ordered."

The groups further argue that a lack of "prompt adjudication" in the case "undermines the benefit of public scrutiny and may have the same result as complete suppression." The motion says the "extraordinary significance to the public of the record being suppressed here" supports an expedited schedule.

To that end, the groups propose a briefing schedule based on a would-be order granting expedition, giving the parties "approximately seven weeks" to perform motions practice before the 11th Circuit.

"Although the present delay is of a different character, the cumulative effect on Appellants and the public is the same," the new motion goes on. "Appellants' original motions to intervene were filed in February 2025. More than fourteen months later, Appellants have yet to obtain merits review of any of their access claims."