In a recent motion addressing an appeal’s expedited handling, an attorney representing former President Donald Trump argued before a judicial panel that Judge Aileen Cannon was justified in rejecting attempts to disclose Jack Smith’s final report on the Mar-a-Lago classified documents and obstruction investigation.

On Friday, Trump’s legal team, along with attorneys for his former aides Waltine Nauta and Carlos de Oliveira, submitted a filing to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. This court previously ruled against them in an attempted RICO lawsuit against Hillary Clinton. The filing sought to postpone two nonprofit organizations’ appeals against a ruling unfavorable to them, a court already known for criticizing Judge Cannon’s decisions.

Trump’s legal representatives argued that the efforts by the Knight First Amendment Institute and American Oversight to reverse the ruling were baseless and lacked substantial reasoning. They contended that Judge Cannon rightly upheld an injunction that prevented the release of Volume II and restricted Jack Smith from publicly discussing his final report concerning the investigation and prosecution in Florida’s Southern District.

The filing stated, “The District Court properly denied the Appellants’ motions to intervene for two main reasons: first, American Oversight and the Knight Institute had no valid grounds to intervene in this concluded criminal case to assert FOIA interests, and second, they had no grounds to intervene because the document in question is not a ‘judicial record’ subject to public access rights under common law and the First Amendment.”

Federal prosecutors say FBI agents seized these materials from Mar-a-Lago. The contents of the documents were redacted with white squares. (Image via an Aug. 31, 2022 federal court filing.)

Trump’s legal team described Smith’s probe as “unlawful,” referencing a controversial July 2024 dismissal by a Trump-appointed judge. The dismissal nullified charges against Trump, then a candidate, for willfully retaining classified documents and obstruction, citing Smith’s alleged improper appointment as special counsel.

Smith is scheduled to testify publicly before the House Judiciary Committee as soon as Thursday morning, and will face the same restrictions on what he can say about the Mar-a-Lago probe, unlike his Jan. 6 investigation — the report on which has been public since early 2025.

When Smith testified behind closed doors in December, he noted that Cannon’s order was the “reason” for his silence about the details of Volume II.

Since February 2025, the Knight Institute and American Oversight have tried to convince Cannon to lift her injunction in the public interest, filing motions to intervene in the shuttered criminal case against Trump and his former co-defendants.

Cannon denied the motions more than half a year later — only after the groups appealed to the 11th Circuit. The appellate court agreed the judge had engaged in “undue delay” and put Cannon on a 60-day deadline to rule.

When Cannon did finally rule on Dec. 22, denying the proposed interventions to lift the injunction, Smith’s deposition had already taken place. Notably, Smith revealed he “chose not to review” his own report prior to the deposition, fearing that could have been construed as “violating [Cannon’s] order by looking at it[.]”

Both nonprofits responded to the loss with appeals and moved to fast-track the issue toward oral argument at the 11th Circuit’s “earliest convenience,” citing “statutory, common law, and constitutional rights of access to a document of singular importance to an ongoing and national debate about the character and actions of the President.”

The Trump opposition brief, emphasizing that Cannon “separately ruled” her injunction is set to “automatically expire” on Feb. 24, insisted the judge simply applied “settled law” and that arguments to the contrary “are without legal merit.”

Though Cannon herself reviewed Volume II in her chambers, that doesn’t make Smith’s report a “judicial record,” attorneys for Trump, Nauta, and De Oliveira jointly stated.

“Volume II was never filed on the District Court’s docket, was never attached to any substantive motion, and was never admitted into evidence,” the filing said. “The District Court’s in camera review of Volume II did not transform it into a judicial record. The District Court also correctly denied intervention based on Appellants’ asserted FOIA rights.”

The brief, adding that the appeal “bears no resemblance to a time-sensitive” issue, like a stay of an execution in a death penalty case, closed by saying the 11th Circuit has “no basis to find ‘good cause’ to depart from the Court’s ordinary briefing procedures.”

Left: Former special counsel Jack Smith speaks on Oct. 8, 2025, at the UCL Centre for Global Constitutional Democracy (UCL Laws/YouTube). Right: President Donald Trump speaks to a gathering of top U.S. military commanders at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2025, in Quantico, Va. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci).

The nonprofits, on the other hand, have repeatedly said a report documenting a sitting president’s alleged crimes is no ordinary case, and that the 11th Circuit’s prior order forcing Cannon to issue a ruling on their motions to intervene speaks volumes.

“The Court found ‘undue delay’ in the district court’s resolution of the Knight Institute’s motion to intervene. At that time, the Institute’s motion had been pending for more than six months. The motion had been pending for more than eight months when the district court finally issued its decision. Against that background, expedited appellate proceedings are especially warranted,” their motion said.

Read the full filing here.