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President-elect Donald Trump on Monday night made a last-ditch effort to block the release of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s closing report on two criminal cases that have since been dismissed.

Trump’s legal team was allowed to review the two-volume report, which would present Smith’s narrative of the evidence he gathered in the cases. It centers on the classified documents case and Trump’s alleged efforts to subvert the results of the 2020 election.

The former president’s team asked Attorney General Merrick Garland not to release the report, arguing that the decision should rest with the incoming Trump administration, and claimed that releasing it would illegally interfere with the presidential transition, per Politico.

The attorneys Todd Blanche, who has been nominated for Trump’s deputy attorney general, and John Lauro also demanded that Garland fire Smith before he resigns.

“Because Smith has proposed an unlawful course of action, you must countermand his plan and remove him promptly,” the attorneys wrote.

The request comes the same day that attorneys for two of Trump’s former co-defendants in the classified documents case asked Judge Aileen Cannon to issue an emergency order that bars Smith from releasing his report on the classified documents case by Jan. 10.

The legal team, which represents former defendants Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, claimed in the request that Smith does not have the authority to serve as special counsel and should not have access to the materials in the report. Cannon used the same reasoning in her dismissal of the classified documents case. 

“Despite losing in court and having no valid appointment, Smith is determined to continue litigating this case in the court of public opinion,” lawyers for Nauta and De Oliveira wrote, according to ABC News. 

The attorneys also alleged that the release would taint any future proceedings in the case, should it be reopened, by making the defense “unreasonably difficult,” because it would unfairly present one side of the evidence.

“These Defendants will irreparably suffer harm as civilian casualties of the Government’s impermissible and contumacious utilization of political lawfare to include release of the unauthorized Report,” the defense lawyers claimed. 

Smith’s office has not indicated when it plans to release the report, but Trump’s legal team claimed there is “every reason to believe” the report will be dropped in the next few days. 

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.