A federal judge in Florida cleared the way on Monday for the Justice Department to soon release a portion of a report written by the special counsel, Jack Smith, detailing the decisions he made in charging President-elect Donald J. Trump with plotting to overturn his loss in the 2020 election.
But in a five-page order, the judge, Aileen M. Cannon, ruled that prosecutors and defense lawyers would have to appear before her in court on Friday to argue over whether the Justice Department could release to members of Congress the part of Mr. Smith’s report dealing with the case she oversaw: the one in which Mr. Trump was accused of refusing to return classified documents after he left office.
Under the ruling, the Justice Department would be free to release the part of the report about the election case as early as just after midnight Tuesday morning. Mr. Trump’s lawyers could still ask an appeals court or the Supreme Court to stop that part of Mr. Smith’s report from coming out.
Judge Cannon’s order, filed in Federal District Court in Fort Pierce, Fla., was the latest twist in a weeklong battle over the release of the two-volume report, which represents Mr. Smith’s final word on the two defunct criminal cases he brought against Mr. Trump.
In one of those cases, overseen by Judge Cannon in Florida, Mr. Trump was charged with illegally holding on to a trove of state secrets after leaving office in 2021 and then conspiring with two of his aides to obstruct the government’s efforts to retrieve the material. In the other case, filed in Federal District Court in Washington, he was accused of three intersecting conspiracies to illegally maintain his grip on power after losing the presidential race.
