WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked the public release of special counsel Jack Smith's report on investigations into Donald Trump as an appeals court weighs a challenge to the disclosure of a much-anticipated document just days before the president-elect reclaims office.
The ruling from U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon may represent a short-lived victory for Trump, but it's nonetheless the latest instance of the Trump-appointed jurist taking action in the Republican's favor. The halt followed an emergency request Monday by defense lawyers to block the release of a report that they said would be one-sided and prejudicial.
Trump responded to Cannon's order by complaining anew at a news conference about Smith's investigation and saying, “It'll be a fake report just like it was a fake investigation.”
It was unclear what the Justice Department, which has its own regulations governing special counsels and the reports they are expected to produce when they conclude their own, intended to do following Cannon's order.
The two-volume report is expected to describe charging decisions made in separate investigations by Smith into Trump's hoarding of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, and his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the run-up to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Cannon's order did not make a distinction between the two volumes, instead barring the release of any information from any report for three days after the dispute is resolved by the Atlanta -based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, unless the court orders otherwise. Smith’s team said it would file a response to the appeals court.
Trump was charged alongside two co-defendants in the classified documents case, which was dismissed in July by Cannon, who concluded that Smith's appointment was illegal. Trump was also charged in an election interference case that was significantly narrowed by a Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity. Smith's team abandoned both cases in November after Trump's presidential victory, citing Justice Department policy that prohibits the federal prosecutions of sitting presidents.
Lawyers for Trump, including Todd Blanche, who was picked by Trump to serve as his deputy attorney general, urged Attorney General Merrick Garland a letter that was made public late Monday to block the release of the report and to remove Smith from his position “promptly” — or defer the release of the report to the incoming attorney general.
Using language mimicking Trump's own attacks on Smith and his work, Blanche told Garland that the “release of any confidential report prepared by this out-of-control private citizen unconstitutionally posing as a prosecutor would be nothing more than a lawless political stunt, designed to politically harm President Trump and justify the huge sums of taxpayer money Smith unconstitutionally spent on his failed and dismissed cases.”
The letter was included as part of an emergency request filed late Monday with Cannon by lawyers for Trump's codefendants in the documents case, Trump valet Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira.
They asked Cannon to block the report's release, noting that Smith's appeal of her dismissal of charges against the men is pending and that the disclosure of pejorative information about them would be prejudicial.
In response to that request, Smith's team said in a two-page filing earlier Tuesday that it intended to submit its report to Garland by that afternoon and that the volume pertaining to the classified documents investigation would not be made public before 10 a.m. Friday.
Justice Department regulations call for special counsels appointed by the attorney general to submit a confidential report at the conclusion of their investigations. It's then up to the attorney general to decide what to make public.
Garland has made public in their entirety the reports produced by special counsels who operated under his watch, including Robert Hur's report on President Joe Biden's handling of classified information and John Durham's report on the FBI's Russian election interference investigation.
FILE - Special counsel Jack Smith speaks to the media about an indictment of former President Donald Trump, Aug. 1, 2023, at an office of the Department of Justice in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
PHOENIX (AP) — Lori Vallow Daybell, who was convicted of killing her two youngest children and conspiring to murder a romantic rival, is on trial again Monday. This time, she's accused in Arizona of conspiring to murder her estranged husband.
In opening statements the prosecution said that Vallow Daybell conspired with brother Alex Cox to kill Charles Vallow and cash in on a life insurance policy, while espousing the belief that he was possessed by an evil spirit.
The case has drawn significant public attention in part because Vallow Daybell, 51, has doomsday-focused religious beliefs. She isn’t a lawyer but has chosen to represent herself in the six-week trial.
Vallow Daybell has pleaded not guilty and said in her opening statement that Cox acted in self-defense, describing the death as a tragedy but not a crime.
Here’s what to know about the case.
“Lori Vallow is why Alex was able to shoot Charles,” prosecutor Treena Kay said. “Lori Vallow is why Charles is dead.”
A jury of 16 took their seats in a Phoenix courtroom, including four alternate jurors. Kay provided a detailed timeline and argued that phone records, witness testimony and forensic evidence will show that Cox’s shooting of Vallow was “not self-defense.”
The prosecution also said Monday that Vallow Daybell conspired in the killing so that she could move forward with marrying her then-boyfriend Chad Daybell, an Idaho author who wrote several religious novels about prophecies and the end of the world.
“Lori Vallow wanted to be Lori Daybell, wife of Chad Daybell, and in July 2019 Lori Vallow wanted to keep the same lifestyle that she had with Charles. And she could get all of this if Charles was dead,” Kay said. “She could marry Chad Daybell and become Lori Daybell. She would get a million-dollar life insurance policy.”
Vallow Daybell’s voice broke in her opening statement as she detailed the physical altercation with a baseball bat between her daughter Tylee Ryan and Vallow.
“Self-defense is not a crime. Family tragedy is not a crime, it’s a tragedy,” Vallow Daybell said.
Jurors heard from witnesses including police officers who testified that, after the shooting, Vallow Daybell and Cox both displayed calm demeanors.
Vallow was fatally shot in July 2019. Vallow Daybell then moved to Idaho with two of her youngest children and married Daybell two weeks after the death of his wife, Tammy Daybell. The bodies of the children — 7-year-old Joshua “JJ” Vallow and 16-year-old Tylee — were later found buried in rural Idaho on Chad Daybell’s property.
Vallow Daybell is already serving three life sentences in Idaho for the children’s deaths and for conspiring to kill Tammy Daybell. Chad Daybell was sentenced to death in the three killings.
Four months before he died, Charles Vallow filed for divorce from Vallow Daybell, saying she had become infatuated with near-death experiences and had claimed to have lived numerous lives on other planets.
He alleged she threatened to ruin him financially and kill him. He sought a voluntary mental health evaluation of his wife.
Police say Vallow was fatally shot by Cox at a home in a Phoenix suburb. Tylee, told police that she confronted Vallow with a baseball bat after she was awakened by yelling in the house.
Tylee said she was trying to defend her mother, but Vallow took away the bat, according to police records. Cox told police that he fired after Vallow refused to drop the bat and came after him.
Cox told investigators that Vallow Daybell and the children left the house shortly before the shooting.
Cox, who claimed he acted in self-defense and wasn’t arrested in Vallow’s death, died five months later from what medical examiners said was a blood clot in his lungs. Cox’s account was later called into question.
Vallow Daybell was a beautician by trade, a mother of three and a wife — five times over.
She married Vallow in 2006, and later adopted JJ, but by 2019 their marriage had soured. The two were estranged but still married when Cox fatally shot Vallow.
Public interest from around the world only grew as the investigation into the missing children took several unexpected turns, each new revelation seemingly stranger than the last.
Daybell, who was once a contestant on “Wheel of Fortune,” has been the subject of a Netflix documentary and Lifetime movie.
If convicted in Arizona of conspiring to kill Vallow, she would face a life sentence.
During the opening for the trial, Vallow Daybell wore civilian clothing. She won’t be handcuffed or shackled when jurors are in the courtroom. However, she has to wear a belt-like device under her clothes that will let a jail officer deliver an electric shock by remote control if there’s a disturbance.
The Idaho investigation began at the end of 2019 when Vallow Daybell's adopted son's grandmother, worried about his welfare, reached out to police. Vallow Daybell had been evasive when asked about her two youngest children.
Chad Daybell called 911 in October 2019 to report that his wife Tammy Daybell was battling an illness and died in her sleep. Her body was later exhumed, and an autopsy determined she died of asphyxiation.
Idaho police did a welfare check on the kids in November 2019 and discovered they were missing and hadn't been seen since early September. Vallow Daybell and Chad Daybell left town a short time later, eventually turning up in Hawaii without the kids. She was arrested in Hawaii in February 2020 on a warrant out of Idaho.
Defense attorneys told jurors that she was a “kind and loving mother” who happened to be interested in religion and biblical prophesies.
A witness at the Idaho trial said Vallow Daybell believes evil spirits have taken over people in her life and turned them into “zombies.”
Testimony resumes Tuesday.
In late May, Vallow Daybell is scheduled to go on trial again in Arizona on a charge of conspiring to murder Brandon Boudreaux. She has pleaded not guilty.
This story has been updated to correct the attribution to a quote accusing the defendant of being the reason why Charles Vallow is dead. It was Treena Kay who was quoted, not Kay Woodcock.
FILE - A boy looks at a memorial for Tylee Ryan and Joshua "JJ" Vallow in Rexburg, Idaho, on June 11, 2020. (John Roark/The Idaho Post-Register via AP, File)
FILE - Larry Woodcock speaks to media members at the Rexburg Standard Journal Newspaper in Rexburg, Idaho on Jan. 7, 2020, while holding a reward flyer for Joshua Vallow and Tylee Ryan. (John Roark/The Idaho Post-Register via AP, File)
FILE - Lori Vallow Daybell talks with her lawyers before the jury's verdict is read at the Ada County Courthouse in Boise, Idaho on May 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Kyle Green, File)
