Democrats push for release of second part of Jack Smith’s Trump report

Democrats are pressing Merrick Garland, the US attorney general, to use his last days in office to release the second volume of the special counsel’s report about Donald Trump’s retention of classified documents.

The demand comes after the justice department this week published the first part of Jack Smith’s report, which looked at the president-elect’s attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, including inciting a violent mob to attack the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.

That report concluded Trump would have faced probable conviction had he not won the 2024 election, after which Smith – who resigned last week – dropped the case against him.

“It is in the public interest for the Department of Justice to expeditiously release the second volume of Special Counsel Smith’s report so the American people have as full an accounting as possible of Donald Trump’s lawless and criminal conduct,” said Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives’ judiciary committee.

The second volume is being withheld on the order of a US federal judge in Florida, Aileen Cannon, on the basis that it would prejudice the case of two co-defendants, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, who face charges of conspiring with Trump to hide a trove of documents from his first term as president at his Mar-a-Lago home.

The report is believed to detail Trump’s efforts to illegally withhold and conceal a large number of documents containing highly sensitive national security secrets after he removed them from the White House. They were eventually retrieved by FBI agents in 2022 after the justice department authorised a search of Trump’s home.

Cannon has scheduled a court hearing for Friday to consider the case for releasing or withholding the second volume.

Garland – who has been criticised by Democrats, including Joe Biden, for waiting too long to appoint a special counsel to investigate Trump – has said he intends to keep the report secret while waiting for the case against Nauta and De Oliveira to play out – but with that case expected to be shelved after Trump’s incoming administration takes over the justice department next week, that would mean Smith’s charges would be unlikely to ever see the light of day.

Garland has suggested releasing the report just to House and Senate judiciary committee members for review.

But Democrats on the House judicial committee said that was insufficient and that a wider release to put the report in the public domain is essential.

“It is in the very nature of American democracy that the people have a right to know of the public actions of their public officials, and it is essential to the rule of law that Justice Department special counsel reports continue to be available and accessible to the public,” they wrote to Garland.

“As Attorney General, it is incumbent upon you to take all necessary steps to ensure the report is released before the end of your tenure, including, if necessary, by simply dismissing the remaining criminal charges against Mr Trump’s co-conspirators, Waltine Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira.”

Trump’s lawyers will try to persuade Cannon – who was appointed to the bench by Trump and has consistently ruled in his favour in the case – to prohibit even a limited disclosure to Congress, arguing that the report could leak.