A federal judge in Florida on Tuesday pushed further out of public reach the federal prosecutors’ detailed account of why Donald Trump held onto, and what he did with, highly sensitive secret government documents at his Mar-a-Lago private club after he left the Presidency four years ago.

U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon of Fort Pierce, in a new ruling, accused federal prosecutors in the case and their Justice Department superiors of having “not been faithful” to their professional duty to “do justice” in pressing for the release of the Mar-a-Lago report.

That report is the second of two volumes recounting the lengthy federal criminal investigation of Trump and his allies. Volume 2 deals with the classified documents case. Volume 1, a report on how Trump and associates tried to undo his defeat in the 2020 election, was made public last week with new and embarrassing details.)

With Trump now officially in office again as President, the ultimate fate of that report by Special Counsel Jack Smith and his investigating team lies directly with the new Administration, either the Justice Department or even the President himself. The chances of public release seem remote, at least for the next four years – and perhaps then only if the report has been preserved somewhere, in some form.

On Tuesday, Judge Cannon blocked any release of Volume 2, to the public or even confidentially to members of Congress. Smith’s team, supported by then-U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, wanted that report to at least go to the leaders of the congressional Judiciary Committees.

Judge Cannon, who has repeatedly made rulings favorable to Trump, has re-taken control of the documents case because two of Trump’s workers at his Florida club have been charged with crimes related to the documents’ storage and movements around that resort. Those two, Waltine Nauta and Carlos DeOliveira, have not gone to trial because Cannon last July dismissed the entire case against them and Trump after ruling that Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional.

Smith dismissed Trump from the case after the November election, concluding that the President would be legally immune when he returned to office. But Smith and his superiors have sought to revive the case against Nauta and DeOliveira by appealing the Cannon order dismissing it. That appeal remains pending in a federal appeals court, but its future is uncertain, especially with Trump now in office and thus in a position either to pardon his Mar-a-Lago employees, or else order the Justice Department to close the case.

Meanwhile, the cable TV network CNN reported on Tuesday, citing unnamed sources, that there probably would be no pardon of Nauta and DeOliveira because that would be an admission that they had committed a crime.

The judge’s new order, 14 pages filled with sharp criticism of Smith, his team and their Justice Department leaders, insisted that she still had authority to take action to prevent the release of a report that might interfere with the rights of Nauta and DeOliveira to a fair trial. She argued that there was no sign of any interest in Congress in having Volume 2 and that, in any event, there was no formal document binding those lawmakers from releasing the report publicly if they did receive it.

Trump himself, not surprisingly, does not want Volume 2 to be released, and he sought to return as a party in the current proceedings in Cannon’s court. She ruled Tuesday that he could take part as a “friend of the court” (a kind of advisory role), without legal rights as a party himself. Later, depending on the situation in the future, the judge said she would reconsider whether to permit Trump take part fully.
The judge told lawyers in the case to come back in 30 days with a report on the status of that case. In the meantime, the appeals court could move toward deciding the still-pending appeal of the judge’s dismissal.

Tuesday’s ruling was dated Tuesday, but there were indications that it had been prepared earlier, before Trump’s inauguration Monday. Earlier this month, Cannon had temporarily blocked release of Volume 2 while she considered how to deal with the dispute.