United States District Judge Aileen Cannon of the Southern District of Florida temporarily blocked the Justice Department from releasing any report by special counsel Jack Smith about the investigations involving President-elect Donald Trump.

Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Smith to oversee investigations into allegations surrounding Trump’s efforts to contest the results of the 2020 election and retention of classified material by the president-elect in November 2022. Cannon’s ruling would block Garland from releasing the report until the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled on an emergency motion.

“Pending resolution of the Emergency Motion filed in the Eleventh Circuit and/or any further direction from the Eleventh Circuit, Attorney General Garland, the Department of Justice, Special Counsel Smith, all of their officers, agents, and employees, and all persons acting in active concert or participation with such individuals, see Fed. R. Civ. P. 65(d)(2), are TEMPORARILY ENJOINED from (a) releasing, sharing, or transmitting the Final Report or any drafts of such Report outside the Department of Justice, or (b) otherwise releasing, distributing, conveying, or sharing with anyone outside the Department of Justice any information or conclusions in the Final Report or in drafts thereof,” Cannon wrote.

Federal prosecutors said that Garland could approve a two-volume report as early as Friday, according to CBS News.

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Judge Aileen Cannon has ordered a temporarily block on releasing the Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report.

This will block the Department of Injustice from releasing the report until the legal battle plays out. pic.twitter.com/FIFCo1oPWw

— Breanna Morello (@BreannaMorello) January 7, 2025

Trump’s co-defendants in the classified documents case, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, argued that Smith did not have the authority to compile the report in a filing Monday, Just the News reported.

“I write separately to highlight another way in which this prosecution may violate our constitutional structure,” Associate Justice Clarence Thomas wrote when concurring in the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity. “In this case, the Attorney General purported to appoint a private citizen as Special Counsel to prosecute a former President on behalf of the United States.  But, I am not sure that any office for the Special Counsel has been ‘established by Law,’ as the Constitution requires.”

Cannon previously found that Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional under the appointments clause of the Constitution in a 93-page ruling released in July that dismissed the charges against Trump in the classified documents case.

Trump’s attorneys asked Garland not to release the report Monday, arguing that the incoming administration should make the decision and that releasing it would interfere with the presidential transition.

Smith unsealed a superseding indictment on July 27, 2023, that included charges against De Oliveira, a maintenance worker at Mar-a-Lago, the Florida estate owned by Trump, after the special counsel initially secured a 37-count indictment against Trump and Nauta in June 2023.