Breaking — Trump's Judge Cannon Permanently Buries His Crimes

She dismissed the case. Then she used her own dismissal to block the public from ever seeing what the case found. The report was one day from release.

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Tomorrow, the American public was supposed to learn what the FBI found in those boxes at Mar-a-Lago. Today, a Trump-appointed judge made sure they never will.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon permanently blocked the release of Volume 2 of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report on Monday — the volume documenting Trump’s hoarding of classified national security documents after leaving office.¹ The order bars Attorney General Pam Bondi and all future attorneys general from ever releasing the report. It came one day — one day — before Volume 2 would have finally become public.²

This is the same judge who dismissed the criminal case against Trump in July 2024 by ruling that Jack Smith was unlawfully appointed — a legal theory so novel that no federal court had ever endorsed it.¹ She manufactured the shield, then hid behind it. In her own words, releasing the report would violate the “presumption of innocence” for defendants whose charges she dismissed.¹ That’s not legal reasoning. That’s a loyalty test dressed in a robe.

What They’re Burying

Jack Smith testified under oath before Congress that Volume 2 contains “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” that Trump willfully retained highly classified documents that endangered national security.³ This isn’t speculation. The investigation produced surveillance footage showing boxes being moved at Mar-a-Lago. Witnesses testified Trump personally examined the boxes after a subpoena was issued demanding their return. A grand jury examined the evidence and returned a 40-count indictment — not against Trump alone, but against his personal aide Walt Nauta, who moved the boxes, and Carlos de Oliveira, the Mar-a-Lago property manager who allegedly helped obstruct the investigation.³ The evidence was so strong that Smith’s team wrote, in Volume 1, that “but for Mr. Trump’s election and imminent return to the Presidency, the Office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial.”⁴

Read that again. A federal prosecutor told the American people, in writing, that the evidence was strong enough to convict — and the only reason it didn’t go to trial was that Trump won an election. That’s what Cannon just buried. Not spin. Not politics. A documented, sworn conclusion backed by surveillance footage, witness testimony, and 40 felony counts.

And Trump didn’t just ask Cannon to suppress the report. He asked her to order its physical destruction — every copy, erased from existence.³ American Oversight had to send an emergency letter to the DOJ and National Archives warning that destroying the report would violate the Federal Records Act.³ “Federal records belong to the American people,” wrote Executive Director Chioma Chukwu, “not to any president or administration seeking to bury the truth.”³

The Pattern You’re Supposed to Forget

This is the fourth time Cannon has intervened to shield Trump. In September 2022, she appointed a special master to review the seized Mar-a-Lago documents — citing the “stigma” and potential “reputational harm” to a former president as justification for halting an active national security investigation.⁵ The 11th Circuit reversed her unanimously. Their language was unsparing: *”We cannot write a rule that allows any subject of a search warrant to block government investigations after the execution of the warrant. Nor can we write a rule that allows only former presidents to do so.”*⁵ They found she had “improperly exercised equitable jurisdiction” — legal language for: you had no business doing this.

She didn’t listen. She dismissed the entire case in 2024. She temporarily blocked the report in January 2025. She stonewalled motions to intervene for eight months — from February to December 2025 — so brazenly that the 11th Circuit found she had created “undue delay” and gave her a 60-day deadline to rule.⁶ Her answer to the deadline was to make the suppression permanent.

Meanwhile, the DOJ — the very department that employed Jack Smith — didn’t just stand by. Pam Bondi’s Justice Department called Smith’s work “marked by illegality and impropriety” and argued that his tenure was “unlawful from its inception.”¹ They actively supported the suppression — the same DOJ that has been defying federal law to suppress the Trumpstein Files. That’s not a neutral AG deferring to a judge. That’s the Department of Justice calling its own prosecutor illegitimate, burying its own investigation, dismantling itself from the inside. The department whose entire reason for existing is to ensure no one is above the law just ensured that one man is.

What You Can See — and What You Can’t

Volume 1 of Smith’s report — on Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election and the January 6 attack — was released on January 14, 2025, over defense objections.⁴ A federal judge allowed it. The public read it. Smith documented “deceit — knowingly false claims of election fraud” as the “throughline of all of Mr. Trump’s criminal efforts.”⁴

Volume 2 — on what was in the boxes, who moved them, who obstructed the investigation — is now permanently sealed. Americans know Trump tried to steal an election. They will never know, under this ruling, what classified secrets he hoarded at a beach resort — or why.

Rep. Jamie Raskin called it what it is: blocking “a full accounting of Donald Trump’s lawless and criminal conduct.”⁷ The Knight First Amendment Institute and American Oversight have announced an appeal to the 11th Circuit, citing the public’s First Amendment right of access to a document of “singular importance.”⁶

Cannon’s own reasoning is the most damning tell. “The Court strains to find a situation in which a former special counsel has released a report after initiating criminal charges that did not result in a finding of guilt,” she wrote.¹ She can’t find one because she created this situation. She dismissed the charges. She blocked the report. And now she points to the absence of a conviction — the absence she engineered — as the reason the public can’t see the evidence.

That’s not law. That’s a cover-up with a gavel.

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The Call

This isn’t an isolated incident. We track stories like this using the fascism syndrome—ten indicators that a democracy is sliding into fascism—so you don’t lose the thread in the daily chaos:

• Weaponized justice: The DOJ buried its own investigation. The judge who dismissed the case used her own dismissal to seal the evidence. Protection flows to the leader.

• Capture of the state: A Trump-appointed judge, a Trump-appointed AG, and a Trump-controlled DOJ — all coordinating to ensure the public never reads what a federal prosecutor found.

• War on reality: Forty felony counts. Surveillance footage. Sworn testimony. Proof beyond a reasonable doubt. And the official position is: you can’t see any of it.

Dismiss the charges. Bury the report. Destroy the copies. That’s not due process. That’s evidence tampering with judicial immunity. That’s fascism.

But naming the cover-up is only half the job.

We built this publication to equip you with the tools to fight back—the frameworks, the messaging, the strategies that actually work. See the links below. But we can only keep doing this with your help. If this matters to you, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. You keep the fight alive.

• Fighting Fascism: How We Charge Ahead and Win — The strategic playbook for reclaiming power

• The Trump Regime Messaging Guide — How to talk to people who’ve been captured by the machine

• The Freedom Illusion — How we got here, and the counter-ideology that gets us out

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Article Sources:

1. Jacob Rosen and Melissa Quinn, “Judge permanently blocks release of special counsel Jack Smith’s report on Trump’s classified documents case“, CBS News, February 23, 2026.

The most comprehensive source on the ruling itself. Documents Cannon’s permanent order barring current and future attorneys general from releasing Volume 2, her reasoning that releasing the report would violate the “presumption of innocence” for defendants whose charges she dismissed, and the DOJ’s extraordinary statement calling Smith’s work “marked by illegality and impropriety.” Confirms the report was scheduled to become public the following day. Includes Cannon’s own language straining to justify why no report should be released after charges that “did not result in a finding of guilt” — a situation she herself created by dismissing the case.

2. Alanna Durkin Richer and Eric Tucker, “Judge permanently blocks release of special counsel Jack Smith’s report on Trump classified documents case“, Associated Press, February 23, 2026.

AP wire report confirming all key facts: Cannon granted Trump’s request to permanently suppress Volume 2, the report describes Trump’s “hoarding of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate,” and the investigations “produced indictments that were abandoned by Smith’s team after Trump’s November 2024 election win.” Establishes the timeline showing the report would have become public Tuesday, February 24.

3. American Oversight (statement by Chioma Chukwu), “American Oversight Warns DOJ and National Archives That Destruction of Jack Smith Report Would Violate Federal Law“, American Oversight, February 19, 2026.

Reveals that Trump asked Cannon not just to suppress the report but to order its physical destruction — and that American Oversight had to intervene to prevent destruction of a federal record. Documents Smith’s sworn congressional testimony that Volume 2 contains “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” and “powerful evidence” of Trump willfully retaining highly classified documents. Establishes the legal basis that the report constitutes a federal record subject to mandatory preservation under the Federal Records Act.

4. Katherine Pompilio, “11th Circuit Vacates Cannon’s Order to Appoint a Special Master in Mar-a-Lago Investigation“, Lawfare, December 1, 2022.

Documents the 11th Circuit’s unanimous reversal of Cannon’s 2022 special master order — the first instance of a higher court rebuking her pro-Trump rulings. The 11th Circuit found Cannon “improperly exercised equitable jurisdiction” and wrote the definitive rebuke: “We cannot write a rule that allows any subject of a search warrant to block government investigations after the execution of the warrant.” Establishes the pattern: Cannon rules for Trump, higher courts correct her — except now, with Bondi’s DOJ unwilling to challenge the ruling, there may be no correction coming.

5. Katherine Pompilio, “11th Circuit Vacates Cannon’s Order to Appoint a Special Master in Mar-a-Lago Investigation“, Lawfare, December 1, 2022.

Documents the 11th Circuit’s unanimous reversal of Cannon’s 2022 special master order — the first instance of a higher court rebuking her pro-Trump rulings. The 11th Circuit found Cannon “improperly exercised equitable jurisdiction” and wrote the definitive rebuke: “We cannot write a rule that allows any subject of a search warrant to block government investigations after the execution of the warrant.” Establishes the pattern: Cannon rules for Trump, higher courts correct her — except now, with Bondi’s DOJ unwilling to challenge the ruling, there may be no correction coming.

6. Colin Kalmbacher, “‘At issue is the public right of access’: First Amendment group savages Mar-a-Lago judge for ‘incorrect’ ruling over Jack Smith report, urges appeals court to quickly reverse“, Law & Crime, January 10, 2026.

Reports on the Knight First Amendment Institute and American Oversight’s legal challenge, including their characterization of Cannon’s ruling as “incorrect” and their argument for the public’s First Amendment right of access to a document of “singular importance.” Documents the 11th Circuit’s finding that Cannon established “undue delay” in handling intervention motions — an 8-month stonewall from February to December 2025 — and that Cannon denied both organizations the right to even participate in the proceedings.

7. Robert Tait, “Democrats push for release of Jack Smith report on Trump classified documents case“, The Guardian, January 16, 2025.

Captures the immediate political reaction when Volume 1 was released and Volume 2 was withheld, including Rep. Jamie Raskin’s demand for “a full accounting of Donald Trump’s lawless and criminal conduct” and the House Judiciary Democrats’ letter asserting the public’s right to know. Confirms that from the very first days after Volume 1’s release, the classified documents volume was already buried under Cannon’s orders — a suppression that has now been made permanent.