Judge orders DOJ to respond to Trump co-defendants' arguments about Smith report

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon is ordering the Justice Department to respond to arguments made by President-elect Donald Trump's former co-defendants in his classified documents case by 10 a.m. Sunday.

Cannon, who earlier this week temporarily blocked the report's release, wants the government to address whether anything in the first volume of special counsel Jack Smith's report, which deals with Smith's Jan 6 investigation, bears on any aspect of Trump's co-defendants in the classified documents case.

The judge's order immediately followed a filing from DOJ that repeatedly argued she had no further jurisdiction to continue to weigh in on the release of the first volume of Smith’s final report after the department successfully appealed her initial injunction overnight to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

The other motions -- including Trump's co-defendants' motion to extend Cannon's halt of the report's public release -- have not yet been ruled upon.

Attorneys for co-defendants Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira on Friday asked Cannon, who temporarily blocked the report's release while the matter was considered by the Eleventh Circuit, to extend her three-day restraining order prohibiting the report's release.