Main: An aerial view of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla., on Aug. 31, 2022 (AP Photo/Steve Helber/File). Right inset: U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon (U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida).
Responding to a motion that seeks to put an appeal on the fast track, an attorney for President Donald Trump told a panel of judges that Judge Aileen Cannon "correctly" denied efforts to bring to the light of day Jack Smith's "so-called" final report on the Mar-a-Lago classified documents and obstruction probe.
The Friday filing from attorneys for Trump and his former co-defendants Waltine Nauta and Carlos de Oliveira, including a lawyer who failed in November to convince the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to revive a "frivolous" RICO lawsuit against Hillary Clinton, asked the same appellate court — one which has multiple times chided Cannon — to delay two nonprofit groups' attempts to appeal the adverse ruling.
Asserting those efforts by the Knight First Amendment Institute and American Oversight lack "any basis" and "failed to demonstrate good cause," Trump lawyers said Cannon was correct to leave an injunction in place that has blocked the release of Volume II and played a key role in blocking Jack Smith from speaking publicly about his "so-called 'Final Report,' regarding his unlawful investigation and prosecution in the Southern District of Florida."
"The District Court correctly denied Appellants' motions to intervene on two primary grounds: first, that American Oversight and Knight Institute lacked any basis to intervene in this closed criminal case to assert statutory Freedom of Information Act ('FOIA') interests," the filing said, "and second, that they lack any basis to intervene where the document at issue is not a 'judicial record' subject to the public right of access under common law and the First Amendment."
Federal prosecutors say FBI agents seized these materials from Mar-a-Lago. The contents of the documents were redacted with white squares. (Image via an Aug. 31, 2022 federal court filing.)
When Trump's team calls Smith's probe "unlawful," it is referring to the Trump-appointed judge's controversial dismissal in July 2024 of the charges facing the then-candidate of willful retention of classified documents and obstruction on the grounds that Smith was unlawfully appointed as special counsel.
Smith is scheduled to testify publicly before the House Judiciary Committee as soon as Thursday morning, and will face the same restrictions on what he can say about the Mar-a-Lago probe, unlike his Jan. 6 investigation — the report on which has been public since early 2025.
When Smith testified behind closed doors in December, he noted that Cannon's order was the "reason" for his silence about the details of Volume II.
Since February 2025, the Knight Institute and American Oversight have tried to convince Cannon to lift her injunction in the public interest, filing motions to intervene in the shuttered criminal case against Trump and his former co-defendants.
Cannon denied the motions more than half a year later — only after the groups appealed to the 11th Circuit. The appellate court agreed the judge had engaged in "undue delay" and put Cannon on a 60-day deadline to rule.
When Cannon did finally rule on Dec. 22, denying the proposed interventions to lift the injunction, Smith's deposition had already taken place. Notably, Smith revealed he "chose not to review" his own report prior to the deposition, fearing that could have been construed as "violating [Cannon's] order by looking at it[.]"
Both nonprofits responded to the loss with appeals and moved to fast-track the issue toward oral argument at the 11th Circuit's "earliest convenience," citing "statutory, common law, and constitutional rights of access to a document of singular importance to an ongoing and national debate about the character and actions of the President."
The Trump opposition brief, emphasizing that Cannon "separately ruled" her injunction is set to "automatically expire" on Feb. 24, insisted the judge simply applied "settled law" and that arguments to the contrary "are without legal merit."
Though Cannon herself reviewed Volume II in her chambers, that doesn't make Smith's report a "judicial record," attorneys for Trump, Nauta, and De Oliveira jointly stated.
"Volume II was never filed on the District Court's docket, was never attached to any substantive motion, and was never admitted into evidence," the filing said. "The District Court's in camera review of Volume II did not transform it into a judicial record. The District Court also correctly denied intervention based on Appellants' asserted FOIA rights."
The brief, adding that the appeal "bears no resemblance to a time-sensitive" issue, like a stay of an execution in a death penalty case, closed by saying the 11th Circuit has "no basis to find 'good cause' to depart from the Court's ordinary briefing procedures."
Left: Former special counsel Jack Smith speaks on Oct. 8, 2025, at the UCL Centre for Global Constitutional Democracy (UCL Laws/YouTube). Right: President Donald Trump speaks to a gathering of top U.S. military commanders at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2025, in Quantico, Va. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci).
The nonprofits, on the other hand, have repeatedly said a report documenting a sitting president's alleged crimes is no ordinary case, and that the 11th Circuit's prior order forcing Cannon to issue a ruling on their motions to intervene speaks volumes.
"The Court found 'undue delay' in the district court's resolution of the Knight Institute's motion to intervene. At that time, the Institute's motion had been pending for more than six months. The motion had been pending for more than eight months when the district court finally issued its decision. Against that background, expedited appellate proceedings are especially warranted," their motion said.
Read the full filing here.