Left: Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) is seen during a Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works during a hearing regarding President Trump's budget request for the EPA, in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, May 21, 2025. (Photo by Aaron Schwartz/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images). Right: President Donald Trump speaks during the White House Faith Office luncheon in the State Dining Room, Monday, July 14, 2025, in Washington (AP Photo/Evan Vucci).
Attorneys for President Donald Trump, his former co-defendants, and the DOJ each filed lengthy briefs on Monday in support of U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon's "discretion" in permanently blocking the release of ex-special counsel Jack Smith's Mar-a-Lago report.
Oral argument had been tentatively scheduled for late September, but the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals weeks ago removed the consolidated cases from the calendar, noting the appeals would be "reassigned at a later date."
In the meantime, lawyers for Trump, his valet Walt Nauta, and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira on Monday submitted a 75-page brief praising Cannon's decision to block the DOJ from "releasing, sharing, or transmitting Volume II of the Final Report or any drafts of Volume II outside the Department of Justice."
"At its core, this matter arises out of Jack Smith's brazen and failed attempts to unconstitutionally prosecute and imprison President Trump and those around him, including Mr. Nauta and Mr. De Oliveira," Trump's brief began. "Even after the District Court dismissed Smith's baseless charges on the grounds that his appointment and the funding of his office violated the United States Constitution, Smith unlawfully prepared and sought to release a two-volume 'Final Report' in hopes of vindicating his efforts through other means."
Cannon, a Trump appointee, controversially dismissed the classified documents prosecution against the then-presidential candidate in July 2024, finding after "careful study" that Smith was unlawfully appointed as special counsel. In February, the judge said that her ruling meant "all" of Smith's acts were invalidated, and thus he had no business producing the report in the first place.
Construing that as a "breach" of her order, Cannon stopped short of ordering the destruction of Volume II, but she made her injunction permanent — leaving two groups who attempted to intervene under the Freedom of Information Act out in the cold.
Left: Judge Aileen Cannon (U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida); Right: special counsel Jack Smith (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
On Monday, Trump's team fully backed Cannon against American Oversight and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University at the 11th Circuit.
"[T]he District Court did not abuse its discretion in denying Appellants' motions to intervene, and that this Court should dismiss their appeals for lack of jurisdiction," the brief said, not mentioning that the 11th Circuit previously chided Cannon for her "undue delay" in ruling on the motions.
On the same day, the DOJ weighed in with a 55-page brief of its own, from the office of U.S. Attorney Jason Reding Quiñones.
The DOJ argued that Cannon's review of Volume II in her chambers did nothing to help the attempted third-party intervenors.
"And, even if the report were a judicial record, the district court was well within its discretion to deny intervention to access it. The district court found that the disclosure would expose non-public discovery material implicating grand jury and privilege concerns and would contravene basic notions of fairness and justice. While the proposed intervenors may disagree, that does not amount to an abuse of discretion," the government said.
The two groups aren't alone in the fight, however, as the 11th Circuit allowed Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats to submit their brief on Tuesday as amici curiae, or "friends of the court."
Sens. Adam Schiff, Richard Blumenthal, Sheldon Whitehouse, Cory Booker, Chris Coons, Peter Welch, Dick Durbin, Mazie Hirono, Alex Padilla and Amy Klobuchar countered that Cannon's order was "wrong" in a number of ways, but especially in her dismissiveness of Congress' interest in Volume II — all while Trump, Nauta, De Oliveira, and the DOJ are on the same side.
The senators told the 11th Circuit that Cannon's "purported concern about grand jury secrecy," for instance, "rings particularly hollow in the context of legislative disclosure."
Slamming the judge for making "inappropriate" accusations that "improperly cast aspersions" on the committee's ability to be trusted to conduct an "in camera" review of the report without leaking "all or part of Volume II," the brief said former special counsel Robert Mueller's report "provides especially instructive precedent."
Jonathan Yarowsky, Andrew Goldstein look on as Robert Mueller testifies in Rayburn House Office Building on July 24, 2019, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images).
"In ordering the release of grand jury materials from Special Counsel Mueller's investigation to the House Judiciary Committee, the court found that the need for continued secrecy was 'minimal' because the Justice Department had already made redacted portions of the Mueller Report available to certain Members of Congress and because the Judiciary Committee agreed to negotiations to prevent release of information that would harm any ongoing investigations," the amici said. "With respect to Volume II of the Smith Report, the Senate Judiciary Committee explicitly offered to accept in camera review, which further minimized any disclosure risk."
"In short, any legitimate concerns related to sensitive information contained within Volume II of the Smith Report can be resolved with proper redactions, not the suppression of Volume II in its entirety," the senators concluded, emphasizing that the public has a right to know about the "serious crimes, including willfully retaining classified documents and obstruction," Trump and his aides were charged with.