The Florida-based judge did not immediately rule on whether the Justice Department can move forward with its plan to show the report to a handful of lawmakers.

Cannon’s ruling stated that Garland, the Department of Justice, Smith, and “all of their officers, agents, and employees, and all persons acting in active concert or participation with such individuals” could not publish any part of the report until three days after the Eleventh Circuit ruled on the case.

Judge Aileen Cannon gave Attorney General Merrick Garland the green light on Monday to release special counsel Jack Smith’s final report on his 2020 election subversion case against President-elect Donald Trump.

Six months after she dismissed the classified documents case against Donald Trump, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon can now decide whether to squash the release of Jack Smith's report, too.

Attorney General Merrick Garland wants to send special counsel Jack Smith’s report on Donald Trump’s classified documents case to select members of Congress.

The decision by Judge Aileen M. Cannon not to issue an immediate ruling raised the possibility that President-elect Donald J. Trump would take office in the meantime and have power over the report’s release.

Trump’s lawyers want to keep Judiciary committee leaders from getting the report at least until Monday’s inauguration - and perhaps, as a result, for good. U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon has scheduled an afternoon hearing to weigh their arguments that prosecutors’ plans for a limited disclosure of Smith’s findings into Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents and obstruction of efforts to retrieve them would undermine his presidential transition “and his ability to govern our nation going forward.