Special Counsel Jack Smith’s grinding effort to allow Attorney General Garland to release his final report on his prosecutions of President-elect Trump has tied the federal judiciary in knots. Mr. Smith appears to be on his way to success — though  an appeal to the Supreme Court could loom.

The fate of the dispatch — which could be a denunciation of Trump’s hoarding of classified documents at his Florida private club — now hangs in legal limbo following an injunction against release imposed by Judge Aileen Cannon and review by the 11th United States Appeals Circuit. This injunction came at the request of Trump’s co-defendants in the classified documents case in South Florida.

The request for an injunction was filed to Judge Cannon by those two co-defendants — Trump’s valet, Waltine Nauta, and Mar-a-Lago’s property manager, Carlos De Oliveira. She issued a temporary stay pending review. The circuit riders, though, sided with Mr. Smith and declined to block the report. They demurred, though, from ordering its immediate release. Instead, they determined that the government could file a separate appeal if they wanted the report out before Sunday.      

Judge Cannon, at an earlier juncture of the case, dismissed all charges in the case after determining that Mr. Smith was unlawfully appointed. Mr. Smith appealed that ruling, but was forced to retreat with respect to Trump after he bested Vice President Harris in the presidential election. The Department of Justice ruled that sitting presidents are entitled to “categorical” immunity.

While Mr. Smith moved to dismiss the case against Trump on account of immunity, the prosecution of the other two defendants — Messrs. De Oliveira and Nauta — is ongoing at the appellate level. It is not clear, though, on what basis Judge Cannon exercised discretion to block the report’s release. The Sun asked that question of a legal scholar, Joshua Blackman, who argued before Judge Cannon for Mr. Smith to be disqualified. He was stumped.

The judicial pileup solely affects the section of the report that covers the Mar-a-Lago case, for two reasons. First, Judge Cannon’s authority only extends to her judicial district in Florida — and the election interference case against Trump is based at the District of Columbia. Second, Trump is the sole defendant in the election interference case, and the charges have been dismissed. Messrs. Nauta and De Oliveira, who were indicted after they refused to testify against Trump, still face charges. 

With the clock ticking down to Inauguration Day, Mr. Garland intends to account for that discrepancy by releasing post haste “to Congress and the public” the part of Mr. Smith’s report that covers election interference but keeping the classified documents volume under wraps “so long as defendants’ criminal proceedings remain pending.” It would, though, be available to congressional leaders “in camera.”

The push to release the report — even in a limited fashion — is being led not by Mr. Smith, who has been disqualified from the case, but instead by the United States attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Markenzy Lapointe, an appointee of President Biden. He, though, plans to resign on January 17. The special counsel will also step away before Trump’s inauguration on the 20th. 

Once Trump takes office, he could pardon Messrs. Nauta and De Oliveira or order his new attorney general, likely Pam Bondi, to drop the charges. Mr. Lapointe argues that in the meantime Judge Cannon’s ruling is “irrelevant to the only action here at issue—the handling of the Final Report by the Attorney General.” Mr. Smith submitted his work to Mr. Garland this week.

Messrs. De Oliveira and Nauta have choices to make. They could make an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court, similar to what Trump attempted with respect to his hush money sentencing. That bid failed by a margin of 5-to-4, with Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joining the court’s liberals in rebuffing the request.