Special Counsel Jack Smith’s final report on the Mar-a-Lago prosecution of President Trump is slated to be released in 60 days — unless the 47th president can persuade Judge Aileen Cannon to order that it permanently stay under lock and key.

That’s the upshot of Judge Cannon’s ruling on Monday. She  mandated that the restrictions on the dossier would “automatically expire” on February 24. Mr. Trump and his two co-defendants — Waltine Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira — have until then to docket arguments for why releasing the report would not be in the public interest and would injure their due process rights. 

Judge Cannon has granted the 47th president leave to intervene in his “personal capacity” as an amicus curiae to argue against the release.The jurist, who was appointed to the federal bench by Mr. Trump in 2020, also rejected the efforts by two legal groups — the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia and American Oversight — to compel the report’s immediate release.  

Judge Cannon called the intervention of those groups “unsupported by law and unprecedented in scope” and rejected the argument that there is a broader right of access to the report as a “judicial record.” The Knight Institute vows an appeal and declares  that “This is an extraordinarily significant report about one of the most important criminal investigations in American history. There is no legitimate reason for the report’s continued suppression and the First Amendment requires its release.”

The 11th United States Appeals Circuit had pressured Judge Cannon to render a ruling on the report, chiding her for “undue delay” in resolving the petitions of the Knight Institute and American Oversight. Judge Cannon’s decision on Monday is responsive to that pressure, but also to a request from the defendants in the case that they have time to challenge the report’s release. 

In a statement, American Oversight denounced Judge Cannon’s ruling, contending that it gives Mr. Trump “exactly what he wanted: time, leverage, and a clear roadmap for keeping this report buried … This was not careful deliberation. It was delay, deference, and a refusal to allow transparency in one of the most consequential investigations of our time.” Any final ruling from Judge Cannon will be appealable to the 11th Circuit.

The special counsel guidelines — known as the “Reno Regulations”— assign to the attorney general the initial decision as to whether the release of a report would serve the “public interest.” Attorney General Merrick Garland, who appointed Mr. Smith in 2022 two days after Mr. Trump declared his intention to regain the White House, elected to release the prosecutor’s January 6 report to the public. In that dossier Mr. Smith asserted that he could have convicted Mr. Trump “but for” his reelection.

The release of the Mar-a-Lago report was complicated by the prosecution’s posture. Judge Cannon ruled in July of 2024 that Mr. Smith, who never secured confirmation by the Senate, was unlawfully appointed by Mr. Garland and that he was acting ultra vires, or without legal authority. Judge Cannon dismissed the criminal charges against all three defendants. Mr. Smith appealed that ruling to the 11th Circuit. 

Mr. Garland reasoned that in the circumstances the most prudent course would be to share Mr. Smith’s report with only lawmakers in camera, or in secret. Once Mr. Trump regained the White House, his Department of Justice withdrew the appeals. Both cases were ultimately dismissed “without prejudice,” meaning that they could conceivably be refiled at a later date. Mr. Trump argues that that possibility ought to block the report’s seeing the light of day.

The 47th president has argued in court filings that the release of the report at any point would “perpetuate Jack Smith’s unlawful criminal investigations and proceedings.” Mr. Garland, a onetime candidate for the Supreme Court, castigated Judge Cannon for making a “basic mistake about the law” when she disqualified his handpicked special counsel. Mr. Smith has also attracted criticism from within his own camarilla for his decision to file the case in Florida rather than at the District of Columbia.

The legal limbo of the Mar-a-Lago report is emerging as a barrier to the ability of congressional Republicans to question Mr. Smith under oath about his prosecutions of Mr. Trump. The special counsel testified last week that Mr. Trump engaged, “beyond a reasonable doubt,” in a “criminal scheme” to reverse the results of the 2020 election. As long as the Mar-a-Lago dispatch remains under seal, though, Mr. Smith is likely to avoid an inquisition on that front.