President-elect Donald Trump engaged in an “unprecedented criminal effort to overturn the legitimate results” of the 2020 election “to retain power,” former Special Counsel Jack Smith wrote in his final report on his investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, as Attorney General Merrick Garland made the report’s first volume public early on Tuesday after Trump-appointed Judge Aileen Cannon rejected a last-minute bid by the President-elect to block it.

This is a developing story.

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Trump pleaded not guilty to the charges against him in the 2020 election case and has denied any wrongdoing. The president-elect and his lawyers strongly opposed Smith’s report being made public, filing briefs in court arguing for it to be blocked and sending a letter to Garland asking him to keep the document hidden. “The report is nothing less than another attempted political hit job which sole purpose is to disrupt the Presidential transition and undermine President Trump’s exercise of executive power,” Trump’s attorneys wrote in a recent court filing. Trump’s co-defendants in the documents case, aides Walt Nauta and Carlos de Oliveira, also requested the entire report not be released—including the section on the election case—claiming in court filings they feared even the election volume could hurt their prosecution if there were any mentions of the documents case.

Garland has so far refused to release the volume of the report on the documents case while the prosecution against Nauta and de Oliveira remains ongoing, though he is trying to make the report available for select members of Congress to view privately. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, is still weighing that request, only letting the election-related volume of Smith’s report be released in an order Monday while she deliberates on the documents volume. A hearing is scheduled to take place Friday over whether that volume of the report can be released, unless the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals overturns Cannon’s ruling before then and allows prosecutors to show select lawmakers the details on the documents case. Garland’s refusal to release the report while Nauta and de Oliveira still face prosecution makes it unlikely the report will ever be released to the public, however. It’s expected the prosecution against Trump’s co-defendants won’t end until after Trump takes office, at which point it would be up to Pam Bondi, his attorney general pick, to decide whether the report should be released—which she’s unlikely to do, given the report criticizes Trump.

Senate Democrats are pushing Garland to preserve all the evidence from Smith’s investigations into Trump, given the possibility the incoming Trump administration could bury the information over its criticism of the president-elect. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, whose office is prosecuting a number of Trump’s allies for their efforts to overturn the 2020 election, has also asked the DOJ to turn over the entire case file from Smith’s 2020 election case in order to help the state’s ongoing litigation, renewing the request in a letter Monday after previous requests for Smith’s information were previously rejected while the government’s prosecution was still ongoing. “Undoubtedly, disclosing Special Counsel’s file to my office will help ensure that those who should be held accountable are,” Mayes wrote, adding that she also “must be sure the rights of the defendants are protected as well” and “welcome[s] any exculpatory material that the Special Counsel possesses.”

While the Justice Department’s criminal case against Trump was dismissed following his election, multiple states still have pending criminal charges against people involved with the post-election plot. Arizona has brought criminal charges against such Trump allies as ex-attorney Rudy Giuliani, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Trump adviser Boris Epshteyn, and that case is anticipated to go to trial in January 2026. Prosecutors in Wisconsin, Michigan and Nevada have also brought criminal charges against Trump allies involved with the efforts to overturn the 2020 election, primarily GOP officials who signed off on slates of electors in the battleground states that falsely claimed Trump had won. Criminal charges are still pending against Trump and allies including Giuliani and Meadows in Georgia, but the fate of that case is now up in the air after a Georgia appeals court ruled Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis should be disqualified from overseeing the prosecution. Willis has appealed that ruling, but if it stands, it’s unclear how long it could take for another prosecutor to take over the case, or if the litigation could be dropped entirely. Trump has asked to have the charges against him dropped in the Georgia case, which the court didn’t rule on prior to Willis’ disqualification, but the case would still proceed against his co-defendants even if Trump gets dismissed from the case.

Garland appointed Smith in 2022 as special counsel to oversee the government’s investigations against Trump, with Smith ultimately bringing two of the four total criminal cases that Trump faced prior to his election. Neither federal case went to trial, as Trump was ultimately able to delay both of them until after the election, and Smith dismissed the cases after Trump’s victory, citing the Justice Department’s policy against prosecuting sitting presidents. Smith filed his report with the Justice Department last week before resigning Friday, in line with federal rules requiring special counsels to “provide the Attorney General with a confidential report explaining” their prosecutorial decisions. It is then up to the attorney general to decide whether the report should be released publicly. The report came under fire in court last week, after Nauta and de Oliveira asked Cannon to block the document from being released. Cannon temporarily blocked the report until the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals could rule on it, which the appeals court did Thursday, ruling the report should be released but keeping Cannon’s order in place. Cannon’s order said the report could not be released until three days after the 11th Circuit’s ruling, and while Nauta and de Oliveira asked for her to further extend the delay on releasing the report, she ultimately ruled against them Monday, at least for the volume covering the election case. That meant her order expired at midnight EST on Monday, clearing the way for the DOJ to release the report. While the case never went to trial, Smith’s final report on the election case also comes after the special counsel released a thorough document in October outlining the government’s case against Trump, as Smith tried to keep the case afloat following the Supreme Court’s ruling giving Trump some immunity from criminal prosecution.

Will Jack Smith’s Final Trump Report Be Released This Week? Here’s What We Know About It. (Forbes)

Judge Aileen Cannon Allows Release Of Jack Smith’s Jan. 6 Trump Report (Forbes)