Trump Special Counsel Report: Volumes, Release, and Pardons

Jack Smith’s final report on Trump is a two-volume document the special counsel submitted to Attorney General Merrick Garland on January 7, 2025. Volume One, released publicly on January 14, 2025, found that Donald Trump engaged in “an unprecedented criminal effort to overturn the legitimate results of the election in order to retain power” and concluded the evidence would have been sufficient to convict him at trial if he had not won the 2024 election. Volume Two, covering the classified documents investigation, has never been released and was permanently blocked from publication by a federal judge in February 2026.¹

What Volume One Concluded About the Election Case

Volume One is the public portion of Smith’s report. It covers the investigation that led a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia to charge Trump on August 1, 2023, with four felony offenses: conspiracy to defraud the United States, obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy to violate citizens’ voting rights.¹

Smith’s central finding is that Trump knowingly used false claims of election fraud as the basis for a scheme to remain in power. The “throughline,” Smith wrote, was “deceit — knowingly false claims of election fraud.” The report says Trump was repeatedly told by his own administration officials, campaign advisors, the Vice President, and state and federal courts that his fraud claims were unsupported, yet he kept pressing them.²

The report groups the conduct into several categories:

Pressuring state officials to ignore certified vote counts in states Trump lost.
Organizing fake slates of presidential electors in seven states Joe Biden had won.
Attempting to force the Justice Department to open sham election-fraud investigations and validate false claims.
Pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to refuse to certify the electoral count on January 6, 2021.
Directing supporters to the U.S. Capitol to obstruct the congressional certification and then using the resulting violence to delay the process further.³

The report also documents that during the riot, after being told Pence had been evacuated for his safety, Trump responded, “So what?”⁴

The Six Unnamed Co-Conspirators

Smith identified six co-conspirators who are described but not named in the report: three private attorneys who spread false fraud claims and helped implement the fake electors plan, a fourth private attorney who devised the strategy to leverage the Vice President’s ceremonial certification role, a Justice Department official who tried to use the DOJ to open sham investigations, and a political consultant who assisted with the fraudulent elector scheme. Trump privately acknowledged that at least one co-conspirator’s legal theories were “crazy,” according to the report.²

Why Smith Did Not Charge Incitement or Insurrection

Smith explained why his office declined to add incitement or insurrection to the charges. On incitement, prosecutors lacked direct evidence of Trump’s “subjective intent to cause the full scope of the violence” at the Capitol. On insurrection, Smith cited the litigation risks of what he called a “long-dormant statute” and the difficulty of legally distinguishing an insurrection from a riot.¹ His team built the case around conspiracy and obstruction instead, arguing that the First Amendment “does not protect speech that is used as an instrument of a crime” and relying on the Supreme Court’s reasoning in United States v. Williams (2008).

Smith also stated plainly that his office believed the evidence was strong enough to win at trial: “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.”³ One detail Smith revealed in later testimony was that the case relied partly on Republican witnesses, including the speakers of the house in Arizona and Michigan and a former congressman who served as an elector in Pennsylvania, who were prepared to testify that the efforts to overturn the election were illegal.⁵

What Volume Two Says About Classified Documents

The second volume covers Smith’s investigation into Trump’s retention of classified government documents at Mar-a-Lago after leaving office in January 2021, along with allegations that Trump obstructed government efforts to retrieve them. Because Volume Two has never been released, what is publicly known about it comes largely from Smith’s December 2025 testimony before the House Judiciary Committee.

Smith told lawmakers his team found “powerful evidence” that Trump “willfully retained highly classified documents after he left office in January of 2021, storing them at his social club, including in a ballroom and a bathroom,” and that Trump “repeatedly tried to obstruct justice to conceal his continued retention of those documents.”⁶ Reporting has also described allegations that Trump showed individuals a Pentagon “plan of attack” and a classified map.⁷

Trump and co-defendants Walt Nauta, a personal aide, and Carlos De Oliveira, a Mar-a-Lago property manager, were charged with helping conceal the documents and lying to federal investigators. Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the entire case in July 2024, ruling that Smith had been unlawfully appointed under the Constitution’s Appointments Clause.⁸

Why Neither Case Went to Trial

Both federal cases against Trump ended before a jury heard them, but through different routes.

The election case in Washington, D.C., was dismissed on November 25, 2024, by Judge Tanya Chutkan on Smith’s own motion. Smith cited the Justice Department’s longstanding position, articulated in Office of Legal Counsel memos from 1973 and 2000, that a sitting president cannot be indicted or prosecuted while in office. The dismissal was without prejudice, meaning the charges could in theory be refiled after Trump leaves office; Smith noted that presidential immunity in this context is “temporary.”⁹

The classified documents case had already been dismissed by Judge Cannon in July 2024 on Appointments Clause grounds. Smith appealed, but after Trump won the 2024 election, the Justice Department abandoned the appeal. The 11th Circuit formally closed the case on February 11, 2025, and the charges against Nauta and De Oliveira were dismissed with prejudice the same day.¹⁰¹¹

Between the two dismissals came the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. United States, 603 U.S. ___ (2024), which held that former presidents enjoy absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for acts within their “conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority” and presumptive immunity for other official acts. The ruling sent the D.C. case back for a determination of which alleged conduct was official and which was not, a process overtaken by the election.¹²

One practical consequence: because neither case was adjudicated, as the New York City Bar Association put it in a December 2024 letter, “the public may never know whether Mr. Trump would have been found guilty or not guilty.”¹³

The Fight to Release Volume Two

Volume One reached the public quickly. Trump’s lawyers tried to block it on January 6, 2025, calling Smith a “private citizen unconstitutionally posing as a prosecutor,” and Nauta and De Oliveira filed motions before Judge Cannon.¹⁴ On January 13, Cannon denied the motion as to Volume One but kept restrictions on Volume Two. Her stay expired at midnight, and the Justice Department released the first volume on January 14, 2025.¹⁵

Volume Two went the other direction. Smith himself had recommended against releasing it while the Nauta and De Oliveira cases were pending, citing DOJ policy.² After those cases were dismissed in February 2025, House Democrats led by Representatives Jamie Raskin and Daniel Goldman demanded that Attorney General Pam Bondi release the volume. Bondi refused, and the DOJ said it had “no intention of publishing the Smith report.”¹⁶ In March 2025, Bondi filed in court to indefinitely block disclosure.¹⁷

On February 23, 2026, Judge Cannon made the suppression permanent. Her 15-page ruling barred the Justice Department from ever releasing Volume Two, calling Smith’s decision to draft the report after she had dismissed the underlying case a “brazen stratagem” and a “concerning breach of the spirit of the Dismissal Order.” Release, Cannon wrote, would cause “manifest injustice” to Trump and his co-defendants, who “still enjoy the presumption of innocence” since the case never went to trial.¹⁸ Trump and his co-defendants had asked that all copies of the report be destroyed; Cannon stopped short of that order.¹⁹

Two watchdog groups are still trying to force release. The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University moved to intervene in February 2025, arguing the public has a right of access under the First Amendment and common law; Cannon denied the motion in December 2025. After Cannon’s permanent injunction, the Knight Institute and American Oversight appealed to the 11th Circuit, where the case remained pending as of mid-2026.²⁰ American Oversight also filed a separate lawsuit against the DOJ seeking the report’s release, with that case still open as of June 2026.²¹ Scott Wilkens, senior counsel for the Knight Institute, called Cannon’s ruling “impossible to square with the First Amendment and the common law,” saying “there is no legitimate basis for its continued suppression.”⁷

What Smith Told Congress

The House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Representative Jim Jordan, spent months seeking to compel Smith’s testimony. Smith sat for a nearly eight-hour closed-door deposition on December 17, 2025, and the committee released a 255-page transcript and video on December 31, 2025.²²⁶ A public hearing followed on January 22, 2026, with Smith as the sole witness.²³

Smith defended the strength of the evidence and said charging decisions were based on facts and law, not politics. He told lawmakers he would have been “perfectly comfortable” not bringing charges if the evidence had not supported them and would have prosecuted any former president under the same circumstances.⁵ Judge Cannon’s order barred him from discussing the classified documents investigation in detail.²⁴ Republican committee members characterized Smith’s work as a “partisan witch hunt” and a “weaponization of the Justice Department.” Ranking member Raskin said Smith answered every question to the “satisfaction of any reasonable-minded person in that room.”²²

What Trump Did After Returning to Office

Smith resigned from the Justice Department on January 10, 2025, three days after submitting his report.²⁵ Once Trump was back in office on January 20, several executive actions directly intersected with the subjects of Smith’s investigation.

January 6 Pardons

On his first day back, Trump issued “full, complete and unconditional” pardons to virtually all January 6 defendants and directed the Attorney General to dismiss all pending indictments related to the Capitol attack. For 14 individuals convicted of the most serious charges, including Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes and several Proud Boys members convicted of seditious conspiracy, Trump commuted sentences to time served rather than issuing full pardons.²⁶ Greg Rosen, who led the DOJ’s now-disbanded Capitol siege section, said the pardons send a message that “political violence towards a political goal is acceptable.”²⁷

Prosecutor Firings

Within a week of taking office, interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin disbanded the Capitol siege section. Approximately 18 January 6 prosecutors were fired, starting with roughly 15 probationary attorneys terminated on January 31, 2025; their termination letters cited Trump’s view that the prosecutions were a “grave national injustice.” At least seven senior prosecutors were demoted, and approximately 37 members of Smith’s staff, prosecutors, and U.S. Marshals have been terminated in waves since January 2025.²⁸ Four senior career prosecutors from Smith’s office — Molly Gaston, J.P. Cooney, Anne McNamara, and Mary Dohrmann — were terminated on January 27, 2025. Acting Attorney General James McHenry wrote that “given your significant role in prosecuting the president, I do not believe that the leadership of the department can trust you to assist in implementing the president’s agenda faithfully.”²⁹

Targeting Smith’s Lawyers

On February 25, 2025, Trump signed an executive memorandum suspending security clearances for employees at Covington & Burling LLP who had assisted the special counsel. The order directed the Office of Management and Budget to review the firm’s government contracts and told agencies to terminate existing engagements “to the maximum extent permitted by law.”³⁰ Covington said it was representing Smith in his personal capacity, that there was no evidence the firm played any role in the investigation, and that it was not a federal government contractor.³¹

In his December 2025 deposition, Smith told Congress he had “no doubt” Trump wanted to seek retribution against him personally and that the Justice Department under the new administration “wants to seek retribution against anybody who worked on cases against President Trump.”⁶ Volume One of his report stands as the most complete public account of the evidence his office gathered. Volume Two remains sealed.

1
First Amendment Encyclopedia. Jack Smith’s Final Report on Trump Investigations
2
U.S. Department of Justice. Report of Special Counsel Smith, Volume One
3
PBS NewsHour. Read the Full Special Counsel Report on Trump’s Jan. 6 Actions
4
Democrats – House Judiciary Committee. Ranking Member Raskin’s Statement on Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Report
5
House Judiciary Committee. Smith Deposition Transcript
6
BBC News. Jack Smith Deposition Transcript and Video Released
7
Courthouse News Service. Judge Blocks Release of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Report on Trump Classified Documents Case
8
NPR. Judge Dismisses Trump Classified Docs Case
9
NPR. Jan. 6 Trump Case
10
Politico. Classified Documents Case Justice Department
11
Spectrum News. Justice Department Drops Case Against Trump Co-Defendants
12
Supreme Court of the United States (via Justia). Trump v. United States
13
New York City Bar Association. Publicizing the Special Counsel’s Report on President-Elect Trump’s Federal Criminal Cases
14
CNN. Special Counsel Smith Report on Trump 2020 Election Subversion
15
Lawfare. Justice Dept. Releases First Volume of Special Counsel Smith’s Final Report
16
Courthouse News Service. House Democrats Demand Bondi Release Special Counsel Report on Trump Classified Documents Case
17
Office of Congressman Daniel Goldman. Reps. Goldman, Raskin Lead Judiciary Democrats Demanding AG Bondi Release
18
PBS NewsHour. Judge Permanently Blocks Release of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Report on Trump Classified Documents Case
19
American Oversight. American Oversight Condemns Judge Cannon’s Order Permanently Blocking Release of Volume II
20
Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. United States v. Trump Et Al.
21
American Oversight. American Oversight v. DOJ – Volume Two of Special Counsel Smith’s Report
22
Politico. Jack Smith Trump Deposition Congress
23
House Judiciary Committee. Oversight of the Office of Special Counsel Jack Smith
24
Lawfare. House Judiciary Committee Releases Jack Smith Deposition Transcript
25
CNN. Jack Smith Resigns as Special Counsel
26
The White House. Granting Pardons and Commutation of Sentences for Certain Offenses Relating to the Events at or Near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021
27
The Guardian. Capitol Attack Prosecutor Trump Pardons
28
Stanford Law Review. Executive Branch Attacks on January 6 Prosecutors
29
NBC News. Trump Administration Fires DOJ Officials Who Worked on Criminal Investigation
30
The White House. Suspension of Security Clearances and Evaluation of Government Contracts
31
ABC News. Trump Signs Executive Action Targeting Law Firm Representing Jack Smith