Left: Then-special counsel Jack Smith speaks to the media about an indictment of then-former President Donald Trump, Aug. 1, 2023, at an office of the Department of Justice in Washington (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File). Center: U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon (U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida). Right: Donald Trump speaks to members of the media before departing Manhattan criminal court, Monday, May 6, 2024, in New York (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson, Pool).
With their hopes for pre-midterm election oral arguments dashed, the groups vying to reverse Judge Aileen Cannon’s burial of Jack Smith’s report on President Donald Trump and the Mar-a-Lago investigation have “respectfully urge[d]” the appeals court not to back-burner the case until 2027.
After the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals set Nov. 2 for argument, lawyers for Trump and his former co-defendants Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira said they lacked time to prepare and claimed the date created several scheduling conflicts.
By mid-October, the court granted the president’s request, stating it would “schedule oral argument at a time convenient to the panel and the attorneys.”
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Nonprofit groups American Oversight and the Knight First Amendment Institute now jointly say the time has come to schedule “oral argument at the first available sitting, because the rights of access” to Volume II “at stake depend on timely adjudication[.]”
“President Trump and Mr. De Oliveira oppose the motion, but only to the extent it seeks to schedule oral argument for a sitting before January 2027, or on a date that conflicts with counsel’s existing commitments,” the groups said, asking the court not to permit “further delays.”
“The need for prompt adjudication is heightened by the extraordinary public significance of Volume II, which concerns allegations of grave criminal conduct by the nation’s highest elected official,” the filing said, claiming that “each ground” the former conspiracy defendants in the classified documents case cited to get their continuance has “fallen away or will soon expire.”
“The personal travel of Mr. De Oliveira’s counsel ends November 2. Counsel for President Trump sought time to confer with her client after the November 3 elections, which will have taken place well before any available sitting,” the filing added. “And the ground first raised in reply—the need to respond to a motion to intervene filed in the district court by current and former FBI agents—no longer stands in the way[.]”
The ex-defendants had emphasized there was a pending deadline on Cannon’s docket, where fired Mar-a-Lago FBI agents had asked her to clarify her injunction so they can testify in the DOJ’s “grand conspiracy” probe without fear of consequences.
Former special counsel Smith wanted to speak about Volume II during a deposition and in a prior public hearing before Congress, but with Cannon’s injunction in place, he held back, believing the DOJ “will do everything in their power” to indict him “because they’ve been ordered to by the president.”
The Trump-appointed judge who dismissed the then-candidate’s indictment and invalidated all of the special counsel’s actions — by finding he was unlawfully appointed — permanently blocked Volume II’s release without ordering its destruction.
As part of that order, Cannon enjoined the DOJ and then-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.”
Cannon has not yet ruled on the FBI agents’ request, but the “briefing is now complete,” American Oversight and the Knight Institute noted.
The groups maintain that Cannon’s “legally erroneous” rejection of the “public’s right of access” should lead the 11th Circuit to vacate the injunction and “order Volume II placed on the public docket.”
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