U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has permanently blocked the public release of Jack Smith's classified documents report, a ruling that ends the special counsel's last bid to put his account of the case before the American people.
Cannon issued her order on Monday, February 23, 2026, from federal court in Fort Pierce, Florida, granting Trump's request to keep the second volume of Smith's two-part special counsel report under seal. The 15-page decision bars the Justice Department from releasing the report not just now but permanently, binding future DOJ leadership as well, a provision that removes any possibility of a later administration quietly making the document public.
The ruling caps a case that collapsed at every stage. Cannon dismissed the underlying prosecution in 2024 after concluding Smith was never lawfully appointed as special counsel. Smith's team then dropped both of its federal cases against Trump after he won the November 2024 presidential election, citing longstanding Justice Department opinions that a sitting president cannot be federally prosecuted. Now the report itself, the last artifact of Smith's investigation into classified records stored at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, will stay locked away.
Cannon built her reasoning on three pillars. First, she found that Smith had acted "without lawful authority" when he obtained the 2023 indictment, the same constitutional defect she identified when she threw out the case. Second, she concluded that making the report public would inflict a "manifest injustice" on Trump and his two co-defendants, whose charges never resulted in a conviction. Third, she invoked the presumption of innocence, calling it "sacrosanct in our constitutional order."
The judge also noted that special counsel reports have historically been released only after prosecutors declined to bring charges or after cases ended through guilty pleas or trials. The Associated Press reported that Cannon wrote she could find no precedent for releasing a special counsel's report after contested criminal charges were dismissed without a finding of guilt.
In her ruling, Cannon stated directly:
"Special Counsel Smith, acting without lawful authority, obtained an indictment in this action and initiated proceedings that resulted in a final order of dismissal of all charges."
That language leaves no ambiguity. In Cannon's view, the prosecution was illegitimate from the start, and the report it produced has no business reaching the public.
One detail that strips the ruling of any partisan drama: the Justice Department itself did not oppose keeping the report sealed. Attorney General Pam Bondi had already determined that the second volume was a privileged, confidential internal communication and should not leave the department. Bondi cited questions about the legality of Smith's appointment, the same defect Cannon identified, and called the investigation "unlawful from its inception."
When both the judge and the current attorney general agree that a prosecution was constitutionally defective, the case for publishing the prosecutor's after-action report is thin. Jim Jordan, meanwhile, has pursued his own line of accountability against Smith. The House Judiciary chairman referred Smith to the DOJ over alleged false testimony to Congress, a referral that underscores the degree to which Smith's conduct, not just his appointment, faces scrutiny.
Trump lawyer Kendra Wharton praised the ruling bluntly, saying Smith's report "should never see the light of day."
Smith produced a two-volume final report covering his two separate investigations into Trump. Volume 1 dealt with efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. Volume 2, the one Cannon just sealed, covered the classified documents investigation centered on records kept at Mar-a-Lago after Trump left Washington in 2021.
The classified documents volume was reportedly scheduled for release on Tuesday, the day after Cannon's order. Whether Volume 1 remains publicly available or faces its own legal challenge is an open question the current reporting does not resolve.
The broader legal landscape around classified material has shifted in ways that highlight the uneven application of federal power. Former National Security Adviser John Bolton, for instance, pleaded guilty to retaining classified material and agreed to pay a $2.25 million fine, a resolution that stands in contrast to the years-long, constitutionally flawed prosecution Smith mounted against Trump.
Cannon's most pointed observation may be the simplest one. She wrote that she could not identify a single comparable case in which a former special counsel released a report after initiating criminal charges that did not end in a finding of guilt. The judge emphasized that special counsel reports have historically followed declinations or post-conviction resolutions, not collapsed prosecutions.
That distinction matters. A declination report explains why a prosecutor chose not to charge. A post-conviction report documents a case that reached a verdict. Smith's report would have been neither. It would have been a prosecutor's unilateral narrative of a case he lost, published without cross-examination, without a jury's verdict, and without the ordinary adversarial process that gives such accounts credibility.
The leadership at the Justice Department has itself changed substantially since Smith's appointment. Todd Blanche, who served as Trump's personal defense attorney during his criminal trials, accepted Trump's attorney general nomination, a transition that signals a DOJ unlikely to revisit Smith's work favorably.
Cannon had earlier blocked the DOJ from sharing the report even with congressional leaders on a limited basis. In that earlier ruling, she accused prosecutors under outgoing Attorney General Merrick Garland of misleading her at a court hearing and failing their "special role" in the justice system. She wrote at the time that "there is not one instance" of a special counsel report being provided to Congress while criminal proceedings were still pending.
Monday's order makes the block permanent, removing even the theoretical possibility that a future attorney general could reverse course. Senator Marsha Blackburn has said the Senate has the votes to confirm Blanche before the August recess, a confirmation that would further cement the DOJ's current posture against reopening Smith's work.
Several loose ends remain. The names of Trump's two co-defendants in the classified documents case were not identified in the reporting. Whether the Justice Department or any outside party plans to appeal Cannon's permanent order to a higher court is unclear. And the fate of Volume 1, Smith's report on the 2020 election investigation, sits in its own legal limbo, unaddressed by Monday's ruling.
None of those uncertainties change the bottom line. Every charge Smith brought against Trump in the classified documents case is gone. The prosecution was ruled unlawful. The attorney general agrees. And now the prosecutor's own account of what he did and why will stay sealed, permanently, unless a higher court says otherwise.
When a prosecution is built on an unlawful appointment, collapses before trial, and produces no conviction, the public does not need the prosecutor's version of events dressed up as an official report. It needs the system to stop pretending the case was legitimate in the first place.