Judge Aileen Cannon has been under fire for years for having sided with Trump in the Mar-a-Lago classified records case.
As part of her ruling, she found that Special Counsel Jack Smith had been illegally appointed.
Falling back on that ruling, she has now permanently blocked the release of the classified documents report, claiming it could hurt the case of Trump’s co-defendants. Had Cannon not blocked the report, it would have been made public on February 24, 2026.
For years, attorneys general have appointed special counsels without any pushback, but Cannon believes Smith's appointment broke the Constitution’s Appointments Clause.
That clause states that all officers of the United States must be appointed by the president, then confirmed by the Senate.
The Morrison v. Olson ruling changed that, with the Supreme Court ruling that a special prosecutor could be appointed by the attorney general to help execute his or her duties. It was that provision (DOJ regulations (28 CFR 600)) that Garland cited to justify his authority to appoint Smith.
This is a very complex issue, which is well above my legal knowledge, but there is a great breakdown of the ruling on the Yale Journal on Regulation that offers a very fair breakdown of the ruling and the counter-argument.
Even though it was ruled that Smith had been illegally appointed, Volume 1 of Smith’s report had already been released. That pertained to the January 6 investigation as well as the election interference aspect of the case.
Some of the key findings of said report were that Trump knew his voter fraud allegations were false, he did not cooperate fully with the investigation, his premise that the investigation was politically motivated was false, and he believed that Trump should have been charged.
In January 2025, just before taking office and after the report was published, Trump went ballistic on Truth Social, posting, “Deranged Jack Smith was unable to successfully prosecute the Political Opponent of his ‘boss,’ Crooked Joe Biden, so he ends up writing yet another ‘Report’ based on information that the Unselect Committee of Political Hacks and Thugs ILLEGALLY DESTROYED AND DELETED, because it showed how totally innocent I was, and how completely guilty Nancy Pelosi, and others, were.”
He was not done yet, continuing, “Jack is a lamebrain prosecutor who was unable to get his case tried before the Election, which I won in a landslide. THE VOTERS HAVE SPOKEN!!!”
Trump has always considered Smith a Democrat operative, and I am sure he still does, especially after the latest Cannon ruling that will block the full report from being released.
Cannon ruled that Volume II of the report “would cause irreparable damage to former defendants,” Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira. But that was only part of her ruling. The key aspect of the ruling was that the appointment of Smith was not legal, therefore, the report should never have been issued. To that point, Nauta and De Oliveira have requested that the report be destroyed (that request was denied, so the report could technically be released at a later date). Attorney General Pam Bondi was in agreement with Cannon, stating that the report should not be published.
She further stated, “Special Counsel Smith, acting without lawful authority, obtained an indictment in this action and initiated proceedings that resulted in a final order of dismissal of all charges. As a result, the former defendants in this case, like any other defendant in this situation, still enjoy the presumption of innocence held sacrosanct in our constitutional order.”
As would be expected, Trump’s attorneys praised the ruling, while the other side of the aisle went nuclear, claiming that Cannon was more interested in protecting Trump than dispensing proper legal rulings. For instance, Chioma Chukwu, the executive director of American Oversight, stated, “Judge Cannon’s ruling continues a troubling pattern of decisions that shield the president from public scrutiny and place secrecy above the public’s right to know.”
I feel fairly confident in saying that most people reading this are fatigued by these cases and just want them to go away, but I am not sure the left is going to ever allow that to happen. I think they will haunt President Trump until the day he dies.
