President-elect Trump and his co-defendants’ double barreled request — to both the Department of Justice and a federal judge — to block Special Counsel Jack Smith’s final report in the 45th president’s classified documents case marks the final act in the prosecutor’s tumultuous tenure.

Mr. Smith is mandated by the special counsel regulations under which he serves to submit a concluding report to Attorney General Garland, who possesses the discretion to determine how it should be released — if it all.

Trump’s lawyers argue that “the release of any confidential report prepared by this out-of-control private citizen unconstitutionally posing as a prosecutor would be nothing more than a lawless political stunt.”

The reference to Mr. Smith as a “private citizen” is an allusion to a ruling by the presiding judge in the Mar-a-Lago case, Aileen Cannon, that Mr. Garland appointed Mr. Smith unlawfully, without the ballast of Senate confirmation or a supporting statute.

Mr. Smith’s appeal of that decision to the 11th Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals was short-circuited by Trump’s victory in November’s election, which led to the case’s dismissal.

Trump’s two defendants in the classified documents case overseen by Judge Cannon — Waltine Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira — wrote separately to the jurist arguing that Mr. Smith’s report should be stymied until the case has “has reached a final judgment and appellate proceedings are concluded.”  

The prosecution against Messrs. Nauta and De Oliveira is now under the auspices of the United States attorney for the Southern District of Florida, an appointee of President Biden.

Once Trump takes the oath of office, he can pardon the two men, both of whom worked in his employ. He can also hire a United States attorney who would drop the charges.

Attorneys for Messrs. Nauta and De Oliveira write that their clients “will irreparably suffer harm as civilian casualties of the Government’s impermissible and contumacious utilization of political lawfare to include release of the unauthorized Report.”

They reckon that the “Final Report promises to be a one-sided, slanted report.” The two employees are charged with various crimes of conspiracy and obstruction. 

Messrs. Nauta and De Oliveira request a hearing before Judge Cannon to make their case for why the report ought to be blocked in whole or in part.

While Judge Cannon has been sympathetic to the positions of Trump and his co-defendants, it is not clear that she currently has the jurisdiction to grant that request, as the case is now before the 11th Circuit. The valet and property manager of Mar-a-Lago have both moved for dismissal. 

Trump has vowed to fire Mr. Smith “within two seconds” of taking office, and the special counsel is reportedly planning on resigning before January 20. Messrs. Nauta and De Oliveira write in their motion that they expect the report to be released “within the next few days.”

Mr. Smith has already shown a predilection for voluminous filings — his motion on Trump’s immunity clocked in at four times the usual length for such documents. 

Trump’s letter to Mr. Garland signals that his attorneys have already glimpsed a draft version of the report, which they assess to be a  “politically motivated attack.” Trump called the immunity brief from earlier this fall a “monstrosity” and a “politically motivated hit job.”

Until the President-elect takes the oath of office, though, he has no ability — as a so-called “private citizen” —  to squelch the report. That choice is Mr. Garland’s to make.