ATLANTA—The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University today filed a petition asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit to compel a lower court to rule on a motion that the Institute filed more than six months ago, 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 court’s months-long delay in ruling on our motion for the release of the Special Counsel’s report has the same effect as denying the motion outright,” said Scott Wilkens, senior counsel at the Knight First Amendment Institute. “We hope the appeals court will quickly order the lower court to act on the motion, and that this extraordinarily significant report will be made available to the public right away.”

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 today argues that the lower court’s lengthy delay in ruling on the Institute’s motion is “manifestly unreasonable.” 

“This report is of singular importance to the public because it addresses allegations of grave criminal conduct by the nation’s highest-ranking official,” said Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute. “There is no legitimate reason for the report’s continued suppression, and it should be posted on the court’s public docket without further delay.”

Read the petition here.

Read more about the case here.

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

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