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‘Truth Must Prevail’: Garland Urged to ‘Release the Damn Report’ on Jack Smith’s Trump Probe
Special Counsel Jack Smith, set to leave his office before Donald Trump is sworn in as President in less than two weeks, has indicated that he will deliver his report to Attorney General Merrick Garland Tuesday afternoon. The two-volume report details the findings of his investigations into the now-President-elect, which resulted in felony charges against Trump. These charges stem from his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election, including his role in the January 6 insurrection, as well as the alleged unlawful removal and retention of highly classified documents from the White House.
By law, Special Counsels are required to send a report of their findings to the Attorney General. Even Trump Attorney General Bill Barr released a highly redacted version of the Mueller Report, although he did so after mischaracterizing the findings in a letter he published ahead of the release. (A federal judge later said the letter was a “distorted” and “misleading” account of Mueller’s report.)
Critics, including legal experts, are demanding Attorney General Garland release Smith’s report to the public.
“Follow the law, release the reports,” urged conservative Bill Kristol of The Bulwark. “Just as AG Garland released special counsel Hur’s report on Biden’s handling of classified documents, the AG should now release Weiss’s report on Hunter Biden and Smith’s report on Trump and Jan. 6, and Trump and classified documents.”
But Trump is in court attempting to block its release. Trump’s attorneys were allowed to review the draft report, and reportedly spent three days in Jack Smith’s office doing so, Politico reported.
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“In a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland sent Monday, Trump’s lawyers said they were allowed to review Smith’s report in the criminal case in which Trump was charged with conspiring to keep classified documents after he left office,” The Daily Beast reports. “They threatened legal action if it is released, noting Smith’s findings include strongly worded allegations that Trump ‘engaged in an unprecedented criminal effort’ and describe him as ‘the head of the criminal conspiracies.'”
Trump’s lawyers referred to the Special Counsel as an “out-of-control private citizen unconstitutionally posing as a prosecutor.”
Noting that Trump’s attorneys said the decision about releasing the report should be left to the incoming Trump DOJ, Politico adds, “In the letter to Garland, Trump’s attorneys said that releasing a public narrative of the evidence Smith gathered — in the classified documents case as well as the federal election conspiracy case over Trump’s bid to subvert the 2020 election — would illegally interfere with the presidential transition and be little more than a political attack.”
The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports Trump’s attorneys are also asking Garland to remove Smith.
New — Trump’s lawyers asked AG Garland in an emailed letter today to remove Special Counsel Jack Smith and stop the release of his Final Report, per court filings pic.twitter.com/XIQ5Daij7P
— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) January 7, 2025
Politico’s Kyle Cheney reported Tuesday morning that “Jack Smith says AG Garland has not decided whether to release his reports to the public and won’t do so before Jan. 10 at the earliest. Smith won’t send his classified docs report to Garland before this afternoon at 1pm.”
January 10 is the date Donald Trump is slated to be sentenced by New York Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan in the business fraud case, commonly referred to as the “hush money” case, which prosecutors called “election fraud, pure and simple.” Trump was found guilty by a jury on 34 felony counts, making him the first former U.S. president to be convicted of felonies.
Cheney also reported late Tuesday morning that “Trump is preparing to formally intervene in the effort to block Jack Smith’s report, his codefendants say. And they’re asking the 11th circuit to send the case back to [Judge Aileen] Cannon so she can rule on it.”
Among those urging Attorney General Garland to release the report is Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department officer Daniel Hodges, who was crushed by January 6 rioters as he defended the Capitol and the lawmakers inside it.
In a letter to AG Garland, portions of which Cheney posted, Hodges wrote, “I was beaten, crushed, and had one of my eyes gouged – and I would do it all again if it meant preserving the Republic.”
“Donald Trump is once again going to get away with his crimes. I don’t know if there is anything you could have done differently to have guanteed [sic] the opportunity for justice, and that’s not why I’m writing today,” Hodges noted. “I’m writing because, while he may have evaded justice, it is imperative that history know the extent of his crimes. Please: release Jack Smith’s final report of his investigation to
the public.”
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“Even in this age of unparalleled propaganda, misinformation, and lies, the truth still matters. We must do everything we can to see that it is given the opportunity to take root in our society, and aid pathfinding of our future by illuminating our past,” he continued. “This report is the closest I and many Americans will ever get to closure with regards to Trump and his role in the insurrection. I implore you to release the report. If not for your own legacy, then for the benefit of Americans everywhere, and democracies around the world.”
Former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) issued a lengthy statement, concluding: “AG Garland now has a duty to release the Justice Department Report and prevent its evidence from being destroyed. The truth must prevail. The framers of our Constitution knew the lessons of history — that people led by men without character can quickly lose their freedom.”
Former federal and state prosecutor Ron Filipkowsi, the editor-in-chief of MeidasTouch News, responded to Liz Cheney:
“At the VERY LEAST, since he accomplished nothing else to hold the leaders of this accountable, Merrick Garland needs to release the damn report and stop being afraid of his own shadow. Weak people all over this Admin[istration] is part of what got us here.”
Former Obama senior advisor David Axelrod noted, “Trump had no objection when the Justice Department released the special counsel report at the close of its investigation of Biden’s handling of classified documents. This was WHILE BIDEN WAS PRESIDENT. Now Trump argues the same should not apply to him.”
Award-winning and well-known attorney Ted Boutrous on Monday evening said simply, “Attorney General Garland should release the report(s) tomorrow.”
Some have suggested that President Joe Biden might be able to fire Garland and install an acting AG who would then release the report, or, others have suggested, release it via an executive order, neither of which seem likely.
Over at The Bulwark, Kristol seemed certain Garland will release the report. But he also expanded his thoughts, writing: “In a sense, the release now of Smith’s report will simply signify the failure of the effort, over the last four years, of accountability and truth-telling about January 6th. It will be the last gasp, for now, of a lost cause.”
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Image by U.S. Dept. of Justice via Wikimedia Commons
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
