Trump wins major legal victory before returning to Washington

President-elect Donald Trump has won a major legal victory before returning to Washington

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon on Tuesday temporarily blocked the public release of special counsel Jack Smith’s report to the president-elect after Trump’s legal team filed an emergency request on Monday to withhold its release. Cannon was appointed by Trump during his first term and oversaw the federal classified documents case brought against him.

IN order on TuesdayCannon wrote that the order is effective for three days after the appeals court hears the case. Trump reacted to the judge’s order during a news conference Tuesday, calling it “great news.”

“They thought they were going to use it to take me down… so if they weren’t allowed to release the report, it should have been because (Jack Smith) was dropped from the case in disgrace. Why should he be allowed to write a false report?” Trump responded on Tuesday.

It was unclear what the Justice Department, which has its own special counsel guidelines, intended to do in the wake of Cannon’s order, which barred the report’s release until three days after the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided the case. Appeals.

The two-volume report is expected to describe impeachment decisions made in Smith’s separate investigations into Trump’s collection of secret documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate and his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the run-up to presidential elections. January 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol. Smith promised earlier in the day that the Justice Department’s volume on the document investigation would not be made public until 10 a.m. Friday at the earliest.

Trump was indicted along with two co-defendants in a classified documents case that was dismissed in July by Cannon, who found that Smith’s nomination was illegal. Trump also faces charges in an election interference case that was significantly narrowed by the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity.

Smith’s team dropped both cases in November after President Trump’s victory, citing Justice Department policy that prohibits federal prosecutions of sitting presidents.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.