The top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee is asking the Justice Department to retain all records relating to special counsel Jack Smith, including his final report which has been tied up in litigation.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said the panel may seek to secure a copy of the report even if it is not released ahead of President-elect Trump taking office.
“The Committee recognizes the current injunction against the release of Special Counsel Smith’s report and related materials and reserves its right to request production of the report and relevant records at an appropriate future date,” he wrote in a letter signed by many other Democratic members of the panel.
U.S. District Court Aileen Cannon on Monday cleared the way for the release of the volume of Smith’s report dealing with Trump’s efforts to block the transfer of power after losing the 2020 election.
But she set additional hearings to determine whether to share the volume of the report dealing with the Mar-a-Lago documents probe with Judiciary leaders from both chambers. Attorney General Merrick Garland said he would not release the Mar-a-Lago volume publicly given the ongoing trial against Trump’s two co-defendants.
It’s possible Trump’s co-defendants could appeal Cannon’s order to the Supreme Court.
If the court wishes to review the case further, it could issue an administrative stay that would block its release as Trump’s inauguration swiftly approaches.
Federal law requires much of the document preservation that lawmakers request, but Durbin relayed concerns about comments made by incoming Trump administration officials.
“The President-elect’s intended nominee for Attorney General, Pam Bondi, has promised to weaponize the Department of Justice against those who were involved in these investigations, threatening: ‘When Republicans take back the White House… [t]he Department of Justice, the prosecutors will be prosecuted—the bad ones. The investigators will be investigated.’ In light of these threats, it is critical that the Department take immediate preservation steps related to these investigations and prosecutions,” Durbin wrote.
Special counsel reports are typically transmitted to lawmakers once they are submitted to the attorney general, who can also choose whether to release them to the public.
Garland has done so with every special counsel report produced under his tenure, but the Trump administration is expected to shelve the report.
