ATLANTA—The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit today issued an order compelling a lower court to rule within 60 days on the Knight First Amendment Institute’s motion seeking the release of a Special Counsel report on President Trump’s alleged unlawful retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago after he left office in 2021. The Eleventh Circuit agreed that the district court has unduly delayed ruling on the Institute’s motion, which the Institute filed more than eight months ago. 

“We’re pleased that today’s order recognizes that there is no legitimate reason for the court’s months-long delay in ruling on our request to make the special counsel’s report public,” said Scott Wilkens, senior counsel at the Knight First Amendment Institute. “This report is of singular importance to the public because it addresses allegations of grave criminal conduct by the nation’s highest-ranking official, and should be made public without further delay.”

The Institute filed a motion in February asking Judge Aileen Cannon, who presided over the Justice Department’s now-abandoned prosecution of President Trump, to lift an injunction she imposed in January prohibiting the Justice Department from releasing the report. The Institute also asked Judge Cannon to post the report on the court’s public docket, arguing that the First Amendment and common law give the public a right of access to the report because it was submitted to the court in connection with a criminal proceeding. The petition the Institute filed in September argued that the lower court’s lengthy delay in ruling on the Institute’s motion is “manifestly unreasonable.” 

Read today’s order here.

Read more about the case here.

Lawyers on the case include Wilkens, Jaffer, Alex Abdo, Anna Diakun, and Noah Kim for the Knight First Amendment Institute, and David Buckner for Buckner & Miles. 

For more information, contact: Adriana Lamirande, [email protected]