Judge temporarily blocks release of special counsel report on Trump cases as court fight simmers

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Judge temporarily blocks release of special counsel report on Trump cases as court fight simmers

2025-01-08 07:50 Last Updated At：08:01

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.

Hungary welcomes Netanyahu and announces it's quitting top war crimes court

2025-04-03 19:06 Last Updated At：19:11

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in Hungary's capital early Thursday to red carpet treatment despite a warrant for his arrest issued by the world's top war crimes court.

Hungary's government, led by its populist prime minister and Netanyahu ally, Viktor Orbán, used the occasion of the Israeli leader's visit to announce it will begin the procedure of withdrawing from the international tribunal that issued the warrant, the International Criminal Court.

Just as Netanyahu met with Orbán for a welcome with full military honors in Budapest's Castle District, Orbán's chief of staff, Gergely Gulyás, wrote in a brief statement that “the government will initiate the withdrawal procedure on Thursday, in accordance with the constitutional and international legal framework.”

At the welcoming ceremony kicking off Netanyahu's visit, only his second foreign trip since the ICC issued the warrant against him in November, he stood alongside Orbán as a military band played and an elaborate processions of soldiers on horseback and carrying swords and bayoneted rifles marched by.

The two leaders were set to hold talks later on Thursday, and Netanyahu was also to meet Hungarian President Tamás Sulyok in the Presidential Palace.

The Israeli leader will spend several days in Hungary before departing on Sunday.

The ICC, based in The Hague, Netherlands, said when issuing its warrant there was reason to believe Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant used “starvation as a method of warfare” by restricting humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, and intentionally targeted civilians in Israel’s campaign against Hamas — charges that Israeli officials deny.

After the ICC issued the warrant in November, Orbán accused the world's only permanent global tribunal for war crimes and genocide of “interfering in an ongoing conflict for political purposes,” saying the move undermined international law and escalated tensions.

His invitation to Netanyahu was in open defiance of the court's ruling. Hungary joined the court in 2001 during Orbán's first term as prime minister.

Currently, all countries in the 27-member European Union including Hungary are signatories, and all members are required to detain suspects facing a warrant if they set foot on their soil. But the court relies on member countries to enforce that.

Reacting to Hungary's decision to leave the court, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar thanked Orbán for the move, writing on X: “I commend Hungary’s important decision to withdraw from the ICC.”

“The so-called ‘International Criminal Court’ lost its moral authority after trampling the fundamental principles of international law in its zest for harming Israel’s right to self-defense,” Saar wrote. “Thank you Hungary for your clear and strong moral stance alongside Israel and the principles of justice and sovereignty!”

Netanyahu in February met U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington, where Trump suggested that displaced Palestinians in Gaza be permanently resettled outside the war-torn territory and proposed the U.S. take “ownership” in redeveloping the area into “the Riviera of the Middle East.”

Neither the United States or Israel are signatories to the ICC. Trump in February issued sanctions against the court for its investigations into Israel's conduct of the war in Gaza which has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, many of them children.

The ICC has criticized Hungary’s decision to defy its warrant for Netanyahu. The court’s spokesperson, Fadi El Abdallah, earlier said it’s not for parties to the ICC “to unilaterally determine the soundness of the Court’s legal decisions.” On Thursday, he said the court “recalls that Hungary remains under a duty to cooperate with the ICC.”