Nearly a year after Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the classified documents case against President Donald Trump, a good government group is demanding the release of Volume II of special counsel Jack Smith’s report on Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents.
American Oversight, a non-partisan watchdog group, has filed a petition for a writ of mandamus with the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, asking the court to vacate Cannon’s gag order and allow the documents to be released. Under the current gag order, the documents are exempt from Freedom of Information Act requests.
American Oversight has repeatedly asked Cannon to lift her gag order, having sought the documents via a FOIA lawsuit earlier this year. In addition to new details on Trump’s behavior in relation to his retention of documents following his first term in office, the report could also shed light on whether FBI Director Kash Patel misled the public during his confirmation process, when he claimed that Trump declassified the documents in question before he left office.
“As the Trump administration continues to target its perceived political enemies over the alleged handling of classified documents, the public is still being denied access to special counsel Smith’s findings about Trump’s own mishandling of classified documents,” Chioma Chukwu, the executive director of American Oversight, said in a statement.
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“Transparency isn’t optional in a democracy,” she continued. “The public has a right to know what Special Counsel Smith found, and the Justice Department cannot continue to withhold a report that should have been released nearly a year ago under federal law. By keeping this order in place, Judge Cannon is undermining both accountability and the rule of law.”
If American Oversight is successful, the documents will become subject to FOIA requests. In a lawsuit earlier this year, the Justice Department based its decision to deny the release of Volume II based on Cannon’s gag order. In most cases, a gag order is terminated when a case is dismissed, though most cases do not concern a politically relevant figure like Trump.
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