Judge permanently blocks release of final report on Trump classified documents probe
U.S. President Donald Trump answers questions during a press briefing held at the White House February 20, 2026 in Washington, DC. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — The federal judge who tossed then-special counsel Jack Smith’s classified documents case against President Donald Trump has permanently barred the release of Smith’s final report on his probe.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the case in 2024 after deciding that Smith’s appointment as special counsel was unlawful, then blocked the release of the Smith’s report on his investigation.
She ruled Monday that the report should be sealed for good, after Trump and his co-defendants in the case sought a court order barring the report’s release.
The public release of the report “would contravene the conclusions in the Court’s final Dismissal Order that Special Counsel Smith acted without lawful appointment or funding authority in this proceeding and that his actions taken in connection herewith are therefore invalid,” Cannon’s order said.
Cannon, a Trump appointee, also scolded Smith for preparing the report in the first place even though she had ruled his appointment was unlawful, calling it a “concerning breach of the spirit of the Dismissal Order.”
“Nevertheless, rather than seek a stay of the Order, or clarification, Special Counsel Smith and his team chose to circumvent it, for months, by taking the discovery generated in this case and compiling it in a final report for transmission to then-Attorney General Garland, to Congress, and then beyond,” Cannon wrote in her order.
“The Court need not countenance this brazen stratagem or effectively perpetuate the Special Counsel’s breach of this Court’s own order,” she wrote.
Trump pleaded not guilty in June 2023 to 40 criminal counts related to his handling of classified materials after leaving the White House in 2021, after prosecutors said he repeatedly refused to return hundreds of documents containing classified information and took steps to thwart the government’s efforts to get the documents back. Trump asserted that he had every right to possess the documents.
Smith, testifying publicly before the GOP-led House Judiciary Committee last month, said his investigation “developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in criminal activity” — and that partisan politics did not play a role in his decision to charge Trump.
Khelin Marcano, Stiven Prieto and their one-year-old daughter Amalia were released from immigration detention this month. (ABC News)
(NEW YORK) — As Khelin Marcano was preparing for her routine scheduled appointment with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in December, she debated packing a bag full of her 1-year-old daughter’s clothes. While she and her husband had been attending appointments without issue, she knew others were being detained at government buildings by immigration authorities.
“When they told us we were being detained, it felt like we already knew, all along,” Marcano told ABC News.
The family, including 1-year-old Amalia, was quickly sent from El Paso to Texas’ Dilley immigration detention center, where they were detained for 60 days — joining hundreds of other families that the government has held for durations that advocates say exceed the limits established by federal court rulings.
Those restrictions stem from the Flores Settlement, a 1997 legal agreement that a federal court has interpreted to mean that the government generally should not hold children in immigration custody for more than 20 days.
As of last month, there were about 1,400 people being held at Dilley, including children and parents, according to RAICES, a legal immigrant advocacy group. The facility was closed during the Biden administration and was re-opened last year as the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown ramped up.
The 60 days that Marcano, her husband Stiven Prieto, and their daughter were held there is three times the general legal limit permitted by the settlement.
“The Trump administration is holding children and families in detention for prolonged periods of time, weeks, months,” Elora Mukherjee, the family’s lawyer, told ABC News. “Children and families at the Dilley facility don’t have access to sufficient clean drinking water, where they don’t have access to sufficient nutritious food, [and] don’t have access to adequate medical care.
‘Why does this happen to us?’ The family entered the U.S. using the Biden-era Customs and Border Protection app in 2024, according to court documents. They were processed and granted parole to live in the country while applying for asylum. The family was released last week after their 60-day detention and their first court date is scheduled for 2027, according to their attorney.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said the family “was released into the country under the Biden administration,” and confirmed their detention.
“For years, the Flores consent decree has been a tool of the left to promote an open borders agenda,” the DHS spokesperson said. “It is long overdue for a single district in California to stop managing the Executive Branch’s immigration functions. The Trump administration is committed to restoring common sense to our immigration system.”
Early on during their detention, the family says 1-year-old Amalia developed a persistent fever. Marcano told ABC News that despite her repeated pleas for medication, the medical staff dismissed the symptoms.
“The doctor told me that fever was a good sign because it meant she was actively fighting a virus,” Marcano said in Spanish. “I got really upset … and told her that whatever the case was, a fever is not a good thing. If she didn’t know that fever could kill people, or that fever could cause convulsions, fever would never be good.”
In a habeas petition Marcano filed against the government, she and her attorney claimed the Dilley facility lacked basic hygiene and nutrition, and that they saw bugs in the food. They alleged that the tap water smelled so strongly of chlorine that the family spent their limited funds on bottled water for their daughter.
Marcano told ABC News that at one point during their detention, Amalia seemed to lose her strength and collapsed in her arms.
“I grabbed her and I dressed her and I took her back to the clinic, and I began to argue with the doctors, asking who would be responsible for my daughter if something happened to her,” Marcano said.
Marcano said it was only then that staff at Dilley transported her and Amalia by ambulance to a regional hospital, and later to a larger hospital in San Antonio. The 1-year-old was diagnosed with COVID-19 and a respiratory virus. according to the family and their habeas petition.
According to Marcano’s complaint, hospital staff provided her with a nebulizer and Albuterol to treat Amalia’s respiratory distress — but when they returned to the Dilley facility, the staff immediately confiscated both the nebulizer and the medication.
“They took her treatment away,” Marcano said. “Why does this happen to us if we have done everything right? I was begging the officers to please help me get out of there, and no one listened to me.”
The family was released together shortly after they filed a habeas petition. Marcano told ABC News that, while inside the facility, she met families with pregnant women and saw children as young as 2 months old.
Long-term effects Several immigrant advocates and attorneys told ABC News that the Trump administration is keeping children and families who are seeking asylum and other forms of legal relief in prolonged detention.
In Minneapolis, where 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos was detained along with his father on their way home from school last month, local school officials told ABC News that immigration authorities had detained four other students from the district. One of them, 11-year-old Elizabeth Zuna Caisaguano, was detained along with her mother for more than one month, according to the family’s attorney, Bobby Painter.
“They were pulled over by ICE and pulled out of their car, thrown on an airplane and sent to Dilley, all in the span of maybe 24 hours,” the attorney said.
Some families have been held for months, attorneys told ABC News.
“The effects of detention are long-term on children,” Mukherjee, Marcano’s attorney, told ABC News. “Children who are with their parents and who are safe with their parents should never be detained when it’s not in a child’s best interest.”
The DHS, in a statement, said “being in detention is a choice.”
“We encourage all parents to take control of their departure with the CBP Home App,” the spokesperson said. “The United States is offering illegal aliens $2,600 and a free flight to self-deport now.”
Since being released, Marcano said her daughter hardly cries at night anymore like she did when they were at the detention center.
“We’re feeling very good and thank god for his blessings,” she told ABC News. “We’re still a little on edge about what we were planning to do given everything ahead. So we’re left here thinking about what is going to happen to us and that gives us a bit of fear.”
“Are they going to leave us alone?” Marcano said. “That’s what we hope, but we don’t know.”
In this undated file photo, Mount Baldy is shown in the San Gabriel Mountains in California. Matthew Micah Wright/Getty Images, FILE
(SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY, Calif.) — A 19-year-old who fell while hiking on Southern California’s Mount Baldy and two others were found dead during the search and rescue effort for the teen, authorities said.
The recovery effort for the three deceased hikers is underway, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said on Tuesday.
Amid dangerous conditions, Mount Baldy is now closed until New Year’s Day to “protect natural resources and provide for public safety,” the sheriff’s department said Tuesday afternoon.
“The tragic loss of life on Mt. Baldy and repeated rescue responses highlight how dangerous current conditions are, even for experienced hikers,” San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus said in a statement on the temporary closure of Mount Baldy. “Weather and terrain conditions remain extremely dangerous and unpredictable, posing a significant risk to both the public and Search and Rescue personnel.”
The search for the teen began midday Monday, when a search and rescue team responded to a request to rescue the hiker after he reportedly fell approximately 500 feet near the Devil’s Backbone trail, the sheriff’s department said.
A friend who was hiking with the teen “hiked to an area with cellular service and provided GPS coordinates to assist rescuers,” the sheriff’s department said in a press release.
During an aerial search, deputies found the teen as well as two unidentified individuals nearby, though the helicopter was unable to complete the rescue due to severe winds, authorities said.
Later Monday evening, an air medic who was hoisted down confirmed all three hikers were dead, authorities said. The helicopter was still unable to safely recover them at that time due to severe winds.
The recovery effort is still underway, the sheriff’s department said Tuesday.
The name of the teen has not been released. The two unidentified hikers found near him were in a separate group and were located by chance during the search for the teen, according to the sheriff’s department.
Mount Baldy is located in the San Gabriel Mountains, outside Los Angeles.
It will remain closed through 11:59 p.m. local time Wednesday, according to the sheriff’s department, which urged members of the public to comply with the order and avoid the area.
“The temporary closure of Mt. Baldy trails is necessary to prevent additional emergencies and protect lives,” Dicus said.
Those who violate the closure order could be fined up to $5,000 and/or imprisoned for up to six months, the sheriff’s department said.
ABC News’ Jenna Harrison contributed to this report.
(WEST BLOOMFIELD, Mich.) — A suspect is dead after a shooting and vehicle ramming incident at a synagogue in West Bloomfield, Michigan, according to Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard.
The suspect, who is believed to have had a rifle, died after a shootout with security, according to a senior federal law enforcement official briefed on the investigation.
Nobody inside the synagogue was hurt, Bouchard said, and the synagogue noted that all 140 students as well as staff, teachers and “heroic security personnel” are all accounted for.
Eight first responders are being treated at hospitals, Henry Ford Health said.
The sheriff noted that one synagogue security guard was hit by the suspect’s truck and was “knocked unconscious” but is expected to be OK.
Temple Israel in a statement said the security personnel who confronted the suspect are “heroes” and the “teachers followed their training and kept the children safe and calm.”
According to sources, the driver was seen steering around security bollards, and caused a fire when colliding the vehicle into the building’s front doors.
The sheriff said the suspect drove his truck into the building and down the hall.
Rabbi Jennifer Kaluzny told ABC News Live that she was heading to Temple Israel when a staff member texted her saying they were hiding from gunshots under a desk.
Kaluzny said she drove directly to the synagogue and tried to go in the building but was not allowed inside, so she then drove to a reunification site where panicked parents were waiting for their children.
She said of the security guard who was hit by the truck, “This is someone who is not Jewish who is absolutely celebrating his relationship with the Jewish community, and we have embraced him and he has embraced us.”
“We are forever grateful to all of them and everyone who showed up to help us get through this,” she said of the synagogue security guards and the police responders.
Officials with the FBI Detroit field office held an active shooter prevention and preparedness training for the staff and clergy at Temple Israel in January, according to a social media post from the FBI.
“All of the training that we do is, sadly, necessary, but we saw today … that it paid off,” Kaluzny said.
“Everyone knew what to do … the teachers are absolutely heroes,” she added.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said in a statement, “This is heartbreaking. Michigan’s Jewish community should be able to live and practice their faith in peace.”
President Donald Trump said he’s been “fully briefed” on the incident.
“I want to send our love to the Michigan Jewish community and all of the people in Detroit, Detroit area, following the attack on the Jewish synagogue,” Trump said during a women’s history month event at the White House.
“It’s a terrible thing,” he said.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said that he spoke with local Jewish leaders in Michigan “to receive an update on the situation and to express our solidarity.”
“I am relieved to hear that there were no casualties,” he said. “This is a grave and serious incident that follows a series of attacks on Jewish institutions around the world. Tonight, we send a message of strength and support from Israel to the Jewish community in Michigan.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
