Left: Carlos De Oliveira, property manager of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estates stands on the property grounds, Friday, Feb. 16, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell). Center: U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon (U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida). Right: Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump walks past Walt Nauta, personal aide, before a business roundtable at a campaign event at Precision Components Group, Monday, Aug. 19, 2024, in York, Pa. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson)
President Donald Trump is taking a victory lap after defeating two “lawfare” groups’ “drastic” appellate request to stop Judge Aileen Cannon from permanently burying special counsel Jack Smith’s report on the classified documents case.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday officially denied the petition for a writ of mandamus from American Oversight and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. Cannon in late February blocked the DOJ and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi “or her successor(s)” from “releasing, sharing, or transmitting Volume II of the Final Report or any drafts of Volume II outside the Department of Justice” or “otherwise releasing, distributing, conveying, or sharing with anyone outside the Department of Justice any information or conclusions in Volume II or in drafts thereof.”
While determining that Cannon’s order did not render the petition moot, the panel composed of two Trump-appointed judges and one Barack Obama appointee agreed the two groups did not show “clear and indisputable” entitlement to a writ of mandamus seeking to correct a “usurpation of power or a clear abuse of discretion.”
The result is in stark contrast to contentions that Cannon — the Trump-appointed jurist who dismissed the case in July 2024 after “careful study,” finding Smith was unlawfully appointed as special counsel — made a “legally erroneous” decision that cried out for a swift reversal.
“Petitioners have not met that burden here, as they have not shown that they have no other adequate means to attain the relief they seek,” U.S. Circuit Judges Andrew Brasher, Robert Luck, and Adalberto Jordan explained.
Jordan concurred but clarified that he denied mandamus “on the understanding” that Cannon “will not enter any order directing, permitting, or allowing the destruction of Volume II while the petitioners’ appeal is pending[.]”
The petitioners have been involved in the dismissed Espionage Act and obstruction cases against Trump, valet Waltine Nauta, and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira for a year now, with attempts to intervene to lift an injunction and bring Volume II to light. Following Cannon’s protracted and “undue delay” for several months in ruling on the motions to intervene, there was a flat denial — and also a golden opportunity for at least two of the former defendants to demand the “destruction” of Volume II and its relegation to the “dustbin of history.”
After the “destruction” threat led to the mandamus petition, Trump attorney Kendra Wharton downplayed Nauta and de Oliveira’s request as a bid for the “constitutional expungement” of Volume II, slamming the “liberal organizations” and “purported” nonpartisan nonprofits for seeking disclosure of Smith’s “unlawfully prepared” report based on an “unfounded sense of urgency.”
Ultimately, Cannon did not go as far as ordering the destruction of Volume II, meaning that the petitioners’ worst-case scenario didn’t come to pass and undercut the need for “extraordinary” relief, as a separate appeal of Cannon’s initial denial of the intervention is on track for oral arguments in June.
To that end, Knight Institute senior counsel Scott Wilkens told Law&Crime that the decision “doesn’t affect our appeal of Judge Cannon’s decision to withhold the report from the public.”
“The American people have a right to this extraordinarily significant report, and the First Amendment and common law require its release. We’re hopeful that the court will overrule Judge Cannon and order the release of the Special Counsel’s report,” Wilkens said.
Wharton, on the other hand, said the 11th Circuit “properly dismissed the frivolous claims of liberal activist groups trying to cling to Democrat failed lawfare.”
“Judge Cannon’s recent ruling protects the rights of President Trump and others wrongfully targeted by Jack Smith’s unlawful and unconstitutional investigation,” Trump’s attorney told Law&Crime.
With oral arguments on the horizon, there’s more evidence to suggest this fight is far from over.
America First Legal Foundation, a law firm co-founded by White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, is now weighing in with an amicus brief that claimed there’s an independent bar to releasing Smith’s report outside the DOJ: the Privacy Act.
“[B]ecause Volume II documents an unauthorized and terminated investigation, its continued retention perpetuates unwarranted invasions of personal privacy. Disclosure is therefore a legally inappropriate outcome,” the filing said, calling for the “[d]isposal of all copies.”
The brief, filed by former Clarence Thomas clerk Crystal Clanton, said that it is the “only remedy that cures the violations and prevents further harm.”
