Pam Bondi Declares Jack Smith’s ‘Illicit’ Final Mar-a-Lago Report Should Be in ‘Dustbin of History’ as Liberal Groups Seek Its Release

Attorney General Pam Bondi’s intervention late Friday to block the release of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report on the Mar-a-Lago prosecution of President Trump underscores how the dossier’s fate has become an explosive political issue long after the case was dismissed.The Department of Justice’s filing in the Southern District of Florida — which includes Palm Beach — comes after Judge Aileen Cannon, a 2020 appointee of Mr. Trump’s, set a deadline of February 24 for the report’s release. The 47th president has until then to make his case that it stay under lock and key in perpetuity. Mr. Smith’s documents case as well as his election interference one were dropped after Mr. Trump secured reelectionTwo left-leaning legal groups, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia and American Oversight, are suing to make the report public on the basis of the First Amendment. Ms. Bondi responds that “the illicit product of an unlawful investigation and prosecution belongs in the dustbin of history. The United States will leave it there.” Mr. Trump, in his “personal capacity,” is also pushing to block the release’s report. Now Ms. Bondi, who is reportedly under fire from the White House for failing to prosecute successfully some of Mr. Trump’s most devoted antagonists — including New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey — is swinging behind her boss. She argues that the report “should not be released outside of the Department of Justice.” She thunders that “Jack Smith’s investigation was unlawful from its inception” because he “weaponized the Department of Justice against a leading presidential candidate in pursuit of an antidemocratic end.”Mr. Smith, who last week testified in public under oath about his prosecutions of Mr. Trump, was appointed by Attorney General Merrick days after Mr. Trump declared his intention to retake the White House. Mr. Smith moved with alacrity in an attempt to try and convict Mr. Trump before the election, but in the final analysis Mr. Garland had appointed him too late. Ms. Bondi now contends that Mr.Smith’s “tenure was marked by illegality and impropriety, and under no circumstance should his work product be given the full weight and authority of this Department.”Ms. Bondi calls the report “an internal deliberative communication that is privileged and confidential and should not be released outside the Department of Justice.” The special counsel regulations under which Mr. Smith served mandate that “at the conclusion of the Special Counsel’s work, he or she shall provide the Attorney General with a confidential report explaining the prosecution or declination decisions reached by the Special Counsel.”The decision then rests with the attorney general to determine that the release of the report “would be in the public interest.” Mr. Garland, while still in power, elected to release the election interference report — a defiant document where Mr. Smith asserted that he could have convicted Mr. Trump “but for” his reelection. The prosecutor struck a similar tone in his congressional testimony, alleging that his evidence pointed to guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt.”Mr. Garland was more circumspect about the Mar-a-Lago dispatch because Mr. Trump was not the only criminal defendant in that case. Also charged were his two employees, the valet Waltine Nauta and a property manager at Mar-a-Lago, Carlos De Oliveira, who had refused to testify against the president. Judge Cannon, whose ruling disqualifying Mr. Smith as special counsel also dismissed the charges, ruled that their due process rights could be harmed by releasing the document.The Mar-a-Lago case, which some observers reckoned to be the strongest of the four criminal cases — two state and two federal — levied against Mr. Trump, has in recent weeks come in for renewed scrutiny. The DOJ declassified emails that show dissent within the Biden administration over the search of Mar-a-Lago. One email reckoned that “if a primary goal of this investigation is to identify and recover classified records quickly, so as to protect the information, the 6 weeks spent fixated on probable cause for a search warrant have been counterproductive.”The Knight Institute and American Oversight argue that those concerns were mooted when Mr. Trump’s DOJ moved for all of the charges to be dismissed, a request that was granted soon after Inauguration Day. One of Knight’s attorneys, Scott Wilkens, declares in a statement 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.”Ms. Bondi’s latest filing insists on the “extraordinary unfairness and prejudice that would fall to former defendants President Donald J. Trump, Waltine Nauta, and Carlos De Oliveira.” Given that the record is currently under seal, Mr. Smith has been hesitant to discuss it publicly, telling lawmakers that “I don’t think I should even talk about that. I don’t want to have any — any implication that I gave some sort of insight about how that report is constructed.”Judge Cannon is herself operating from pressure from above. The 11th United States Appeals Circuit, which oversees her, has chided her for “undue delay” in issuing a final ruling on the report’s fate. Whatever she decides is likely to be appealed to that tribunal, and possibly eventually to the Supreme Court.

Pam Bondi Declares Jack Smith’s ‘Illicit’ Final Mar-a-Lago Report Should Be in ‘Dustbin of History’ as Liberal Groups Seek Its Release

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