In a letter filed in court on Monday night, Trump's former co-defendants said that their attorneys have examined a draft of special counsel Jack Smith's final report on federal investigations into the president-elect and are threatening legal action if the Justice Department releases it.

Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira request in the petitions that Judge Aileen Cannon prevent the special counsel report from being released, which was anticipated to happen in the days leading up to Trump's second inauguration. In the documents, the two men—who both worked for Trump and entered not guilty pleas to charges linked to obstruction—argued that Smith lacked the power to make the report public because Cannon had previously determined

A letter from Trump's lawyers to Attorney General Merrick Garland, which was included in the documents, made similar claims and granted permission for them "to review the two-volume Draft Report in a conference room at Smith's office between January 3 and January 6, 2025." In order for them to "take appropriate legal action," the lawyers, two of whom Trump has appointed to important positions in the Justice Department in the new administration, requested advance notice of the report's release.

In documents filed Tuesday morning with the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals, which is presently reviewing the Justice Department's appeal of Cannon's decision declaring Smith's appointment to be illegal, the defense attorneys made similar claims.

The defense attorneys claimed in the court documents that the draft "revealed a one-sided narrative arguing that the Defendants committed the crimes charged in this case" and that the government had given them "limited-access" reading of it over the weekend.

Garland has informed Congress that he intends to make the report available to lawmakers, providing for the redactions mandated by Justice Department protocol. Since the Justice Department wants to pursue those prosecutions and it is against the law to jeopardize the chances of their trials, it would probably redact parts of the report pertaining to the two co-defendants.

In a separate overnight court filing, Smith’s office laid out more of the timeline on the finalization of the report. The special counsel’s office said it would not hand the report over to the attorney general until 1 p.m. ET Tuesday at the earliest, and the attorney general wouldn’t release it until at earliest Friday morning.

“The Attorney General has not yet determined how to handle the report volume pertaining to this case, about which the parties were conferring at the time the defendants filed the motion,” Smith’s team wrote. The special counsel’s office indicated the report would have two volumes: likely one related to the documents case and another related to the separate January 6-related federal charges against Trump.

The attorney general is in charge of making judgments on the publication of reports such as these due to federal regulations that govern the work of the special counsel's office at the Justice Department.

The office also stated that it would like to give Cannon additional information about its position on Tuesday night.

In Monday's filings, however, the defense lawyers voiced their displeasure with the extent of redactions in the document they had examined.

A representative from the office of the special counsel chose not to comment.

In addition to requesting that the 11th Circuit rule on the matter by Friday, Nauta and De Oliveira are requesting an emergency hearing from Cannon.

Less than two weeks remain until Trump's inauguration, when his Justice Department—which will be primarily run by appointments from his criminal defense team in the Cannon case—will assume responsibility for the probe. Trump's newest assault on the special counsel's institution is the attempt to prevent the report's publication.

The defense teams' actions also follow the completion of findings by recent special counsels Robert Hur, John Durham, and Robert Mueller regarding criminal cases they charged—or, in the cases of Trump and Joe Biden, declined to charge—that were made public with little pushback.

The Justice Department is contesting Cannon's decision that Smith's appointment was unlawful, even though she dropped the case against them and Trump over the summer. Following his reelection last year, prosecutors asked that Trump be removed from the case; nonetheless, the prosecution of Nauta and De Oliveira has been turned over to the US attorney's office in South Florida.

Nauta and De Oliveira contended on Monday that the report's release would "irreversibly and irredeemably" harm them as defendants, pointing to the potential for the criminal prosecution against them to be resurrected. They added that the protection order that restricts their ability to discuss the information the government has given them is still in effect.

The defendants claimed that publicizing the report would make it "even more unfairly prejudicial" because they are "strictly precluded from refuting the Report."

They told the judge, "The Final Report is intended to serve as a Government verdict against the Defendants in violation of all criminal justice norms and constitutional guideposts."