Judge Aileen Cannon’s order greenlighting the release of the portion of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s final report that covers his prosecutions of President-elect Trump for election interference — but not the part on the classified documents case — means that only half of the full dossier is set for imminent release. 

The request to block the entire report came from Trump and two of his co-defendants, Waltine Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira. Now, the January 6 portion will be published — unless the defendants can secure intervention from an appellate court or the Supreme Court in the next several hours, when a previous temporary injunction from Judge Cannon blocking the release is set to expire.

The future of the classified documents portion will be clarified in oral arguments in her courtroom on Friday. Those arguments will help Judge Cannon determine whether the volume relating to the classified documents case — which is still ongoing against Messrs. Nauta and De Oliveira — could be disclosed, on a confidential basis, to congressional leaders, who would be able to review the materials in camera.

The judge writes that she is “not willing to make that gamble on the basis of generalized interest by members of Congress, at least not without full briefing and a hearing on the subject.” She has set oral arguments for Friday to determine whether the report regarding the case that she oversaw can reach the eyes of lawmakers.  

Judge Cannon reckons that releasing the documents report, “even on a limited basis as promised by the United States, risks irreversibly and substantially impairing the legal rights of Defendants in this criminal proceeding.” She asserts jurisdiction over the January 6 segment of the report on account that it too could touch the documents case, even if obliquely. 

That lawmakers could see the documents report but not share it is the plan outlined by Attorney General Garland, to whom Mr. Smith submitted his work last week before resigning as special counsel. The law mandates that special counsels deliver their reports to the attorney general, who then possesses the discretion to decide their fates. Judge Cannon now rules that there is “an insufficient basis to grant emergency injunctive relief” to Messrs. Nauta and De Oliveira with respect to the January 6 report. 

Judge Cannon, though, did assert that the possibility that the documents dossier could affect Messrs. De Oliveira and Nauta was sufficient to give her jurisdiction over the report in the election interference case, which was brought at the District of Columbia. 

That is because Trump was the only defendant Mr. Smith charged in his election interference case. Once Trump won the presidential election, though, the special counsel moved to dismiss the charges on the basis of presidential immunity. He did the same in the documents case in South Florida with respect to the 47th president, but not to his valet and the property manager of Mar-a-Lago — Messrs. Nauta and De Oliveira, respectively. 

Judge Cannon dismissed the charges against all three when she ruled that Mr. Smith was unlawfully appointed, but the special counsel appealed that ruling as it pertained to Trump’s employees. That appeal now rests in the hands of the United States attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Markeny Lapointe. He, though, intends to resign on Friday. It is not immediately clear if he will first argue the case for the report’s release in Judge Cannon’s court.  

The judge reasons with respect to the documents report that the question of its release presents “contested factual and legal issues that must be resolved in an orderly, expedited basis, following full briefing and a hearing” because any dispatch would “expressly and directly concern this criminal proceeding.”

Judge Cannon writes that the government “has not presented any justification to support the suggestion” that the classified documents report be “released to Congress now, as opposed to after a reasonable period for an expedited hearing and judicial deliberation on the subject.” Mr. Garland, though, only possesses authority to release the report until January 20, when Trump is inaugurated. 

Once the president-elect takes the oath of office, his appointment for attorney general — he has nominated the former attorney general of Florida, Pam Bondi — could bury the report. Trump could also issue pardons to his two employees, ending their cases.