Ordinarily a newspaper would favor releasing a controversial document absent some showing in respect of national security. On  Special Counsel Jack Smith’s dossier on his pursuit of President Trump and two of his employees, though, we’re of the view that the best part of valor is to bury the report in as deep a hole as Attorney General Bondi can dig — even if the lawsuit to release the papers is being pursued by the Times and the Columbia’s Knight Institute.

That the Smith report is still a mystery is contrary to the wishes of Attorney General Garland. He wanted Mr. Smith’s volume on January 6 released to the public — it was  — and the section on Mar-a-Lago distributed only to congressional leaders in camera. “What’s the urgency?” Judge Aileen Cannon in Florida asked the weekend before Mr. Trump took the oath. The documents case was then on appeal against Mr. Trump’s co-defendants.