A U.S. judge permanently barred the Justice Department on Feb. 23 from releasing a prosecutor's report on the criminal case accusing President Donald Trump of unlawfully retaining classified documents following his first term in office. Florida-based U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon found that releasing the report would be a "manifest injustice" to the Republican president and two former associates who were charged alongside him because it would detail substantial allegations of criminal wrongdoing in a case that never reached a jury. Cannon, who Trump appointed to the bench in 2020, dismissed all the charges in 2024. Trump was accused in the case pursued by Special Counsel Jack Smith of illegally storing documents related to U.S. national defense, including the American nuclear program, at his Mar-a-Lago social club and obstructing U.S. government efforts to retrieve the material. Cannon found that Smith had not been lawfully appointed by the Justice Department during Democratic former President Joe Biden's administration. Disclosure of Smith's report "would contravene basic notions of fairness and justice in the process, where no adjudication of guilt has been reached following initiation of criminal charges," Cannon wrote in the Feb. 23 ruling. The order means substantial information about one of the four criminal cases Trump faced in his years out of office may not be disclosed to the public. Trump attorney Kendra Wharton welcomed Cannon's order in a statement, adding that "any and all fruit of Smith's poisonous tree" should "never see the light of day." Trump and his two co-defendants, personal aide Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago manager Carlos de Oliveira, pleaded not guilty to all charges and argued that the case was a politically motivated abuse of the U.S. legal system. They urged Cannon to bar the release of the report, which details Smith's justification for seeking charges. The Justice Department under Trump supported those arguments, arguing the report was a confidential document. "Judge Cannon's ruling continues a troubling pattern of decisions that shield the president from public scrutiny and place secrecy above the public's right to know," said Chioma Chukwu, executive director of American Oversight, a government accountability group that has sought disclosure of the report. The Justice Department under Biden dropped an attempt to revive the case against Trump after he won the 2024 election. Special counsels, who are appointed to lead certain politically sensitive investigations, are required to draft reports to the U.S. attorney general detailing their conclusions on whether to seek charges. Shortly before Trump returned to the presidency 13 months ago, the Justice Department released Smith's report detailing his other since-dismissed case against Trump, which accused Trump of plotting to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election. Cannon initially had barred disclosure of the documents case report to Congress, citing the ongoing case against Nauta and de Oliveira. The Justice Department dropped charges against Nauta and de Oliveira after Trump returned to office last year. In the ruling, Cannon also cited concerns about releasing confidential grand jury information and concluded that Smith's drafting of the report circumvented her order finding him unlawfully appointed.

The U.S. Supreme Court is set to explore legal questions arising from the fraught history of U.S.-Cuban relations when it considers the scope of a 1996 law that lets U.S. nationals seek compensation for property confiscated by the communist-led Cuban government. The justices hear arguments on Feb. 23 in two cases centered on the federal law called the Helms-Burton Act, one involving U.S. oil major ExxonMobil and the other involving the cruise lines Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian Cruise Line and MSC Cruises. One of the law's provisions, called Title III, allows for lawsuits in U.S. courts against entities that "traffic" in property confiscated by the Cuban government after the revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power in 1959. While the two cases focus on distinct legal issues, both raise the question of just how powerful a remedy Congress intended Title III to be. In both cases, the Supreme Court has the opportunity to eliminate barriers that claimants face in bringing Helms-Burton Act lawsuits. The justices have never before interpreted Title III, which Congress authorized the U.S. president to suspend if deemed "necessary to the national interests of the United States." Title III was long dormant due to presidential decisions to suspend it. But President Donald Trump, who has taken a hard line toward Cuba, lifted that suspension during his first term in office, unleashing a wave of about 40 lawsuits filed in 2019 and 2020 that have slowly made their way through the courts. Trump's administration has declared Cuba "an unusual and extraordinary threat" to U.S. national security, cutting off the flow of Venezuelan oil to the Caribbean island nation and threatening to slap tariffs on any country supplying it with fuel. BILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN CLAIMS Following the revolution, Cuba's new communist government nationalized U.S. property that now is worth billions of dollars, including factories, sugar mills, oil refineries and power plants. The Helms-Burton Act formalized the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba that had been in effect by presidential order since President John Kennedy's administration in the 1960s. Title III created a legal remedy for U.S. nationals whose property was confiscated. Such plaintiffs can seek enhanced damages in federal courts from entities that knowingly use the property, including both Cuban state-owned entities and multinational companies. Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama all suspended Title III, seeking to avoid diplomatic conflicts with allies like Canada and Spain whose companies have invested in Cuba, before Trump lifted the suspension in 2019. The State Department said at the time that Trump's move would "ratchet up pressure on the Cuban government" and "penalize those who benefit from the rightful property of Americans." In one of the Supreme Court cases, Exxon is seeking more than $1 billion in compensation from CIMEX, a Cuban state-owned firm, for oil and gas assets seized in 1960. In the other case, a small company that built docks in Havana's port prior to the revolution is seeking compensation from the four cruise lines, whose ships have used the terminal. Exxon, which filed its suit in Washington in 2019, has asked the justices to reverse a lower court's 2024 decision finding that Cuban state-owned enterprises facing Helms-Burton Act claims can raise the defense of foreign sovereign immunity. That legal doctrine generally shields foreign governments and their agents from being sued in U.S. courts. The lower court's decision "imposes yet another in a long line of barriers to recovery for victims of the Castro government's illegal confiscations," Exxon's lawyers said in a 2024 court filing. CIMEX has argued in court filings that the 2024 decision should be upheld because it "both respects and safeguards congressional judgment in this sensitive area." Legal experts said the 2024 decision and other rulings interpreting Helms-Burton have made it costly and time-consuming for U.S. businesses to seek compensation from Cuban entities. "The amount of time and resources that has been required is overwhelming for a lot of claimants," said Washington lawyer Jared Butcher, who represents clients in commercial litigation. CRUISE SHIP DISPUTE The other case being argued on Feb. 23 does not implicate sovereign immunity because the cruise company defendants are private companies, rather than state-owned entities. At issue in that case is whether a Helms-Burton Act claimant must establish that it would have a present-day property interest in the assets at issue if they had not been nationalized. Havana Docks Corporation, a U.S. firm that built docks in Havana's port prior to the revolution, sued the cruise lines in federal court in Florida in 2019. Castro revoked the company's legal right to the docks shortly after coming to power. The four cruise operators used the docks from 2016 to 2019, after Obama eased travel restrictions on Cuba. In a joint court filing, the companies said it defies common sense that they "should pay hundreds of millions of dollars for following the executive branch's lead in reopening travel to Cuba." A federal judge found the cruise companies liable for a combined $440 million, saying they had trafficked in confiscated property. An appeals court threw out those judgments last year, highlighting the difficulties Helms-Burton Act claimants face. "Plaintiffs are having a hard time recovering under the Helms-Burton Act for a wide variety of reasons, and it's probably more difficult to recover than Congress had anticipated when it passed the act in 1996," said Vanderbilt Law School professor Ingrid Brunk. "But that's not an argument that means every plaintiff should win."

A federal judge on Feb. 18 rejected Live Nation Entertainment's bid to dismiss a lawsuit by the federal government and many U.S. states accusing the company of illegally trying to dominate the live concert industry. The decision by U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian cleared the way for a possible antitrust trial in Manhattan federal court, with jury selection scheduled to begin on March 2. While dismissing some claims, Subramanian said "there is a genuine dispute of material fact as to whether Live Nation has used monopoly power to foreclose competition." Shares of the Beverly Hills, California-based company traded 1.9% lower in after-hours trading following the decision, recouping much of an earlier 7% decline. The May 2024 lawsuit by the U.S. Department of Justice, 39 states and Washington, D.C. accused Live Nation of monopolizing markets for ticketing, concert-booking, venues and promotions, harming fans as well as performers. Fans and politicians had long urged regulators to reexamine Live Nation's 2010 purchase of Ticketmaster. They intensified their demands after Ticketmaster subjected Taylor Swift fans to high prices and hours-long online queues for her 2022 "Eras" tour. Subramanian said the government plaintiffs can try to prove that Live Nation improperly tied use of its amphitheaters to concert promotion services, and illegally dominated the market for ticketing services to major concert venues. He also said states can try to seek damages for ticket-buying fans, saying it was "reasonably foreseeable" that fans might have been harmed and that Live Nation's antitrust-injury challenge "falls flat." Subramanian dismissed claims related to concert promotions, and concert-booking services at major venues. "With those claims gone, we see no possible basis for breaking up Live Nation and Ticketmaster," Dan Wall, Live Nation's executive vice president for corporate and regulatory affairs, said in a statement. "We look forward to addressing the remaining claims at trial." In seeking a dismissal, Live Nation denied exercising monopoly power and said there was no evidence its conduct harmed "consumer welfare," such as by raising prices or reducing quality. It also said states lacked legal authority to sue on behalf of fans. Live Nation has separately requested that Subramanian limit next month's trial to claims by the state plaintiffs, and address Justice Department claims separately. The judge has yet to rule on that request.