WHARTON LAW
News and Publications
Matt Naham, Law & Crime
January 21, 2026
A criminal defense lawyer for Donald Trump and former senior Justice Department ethics official in the sitting president's administration has asked the judge who dismissed the then-candidate's Espionage Act indictment to "permanently" block the DOJ from releasing "so-called Special Counsel" Jack Smith's "unlawfully prepared" report on the Mar-a-Lago prosecution.
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Kendra Wharton, in a 19-page motion asking U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon to rule on an "expedited" basis, slammed the "multiple liberal organizations" that have tried for nearly a year to secure public disclosure of Volume II of Smith's "Final Report."
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Kyle Cheney, Politico
December 2, 2025
President Donald Trump argued Tuesday that former special counsel Jack Smith’s final report — chronicling the criminal case against him for hoarding classified documents at Mar-a-Lago — should never be made public.
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Trump urged U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon in a new court filing to extend her 11-month-old order blocking the Justice Department from releasing the full report, which Smith submitted shortly before Trump’s second inauguration.
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Anything less, his attorney Kendra Wharton wrote, would “perpetuate Jack Smith’s unlawful criminal investigations and proceedings.”
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David Hood-Nuño and Sarah N. Lynch, Reuters
October 6, 2025
. . . The commission's requests for all communications between the federal government and the colleges could make it appear as though the group's goal is to "spy" on the current administration's ongoing probes into campus antisemitism, said Kendra Wharton, a former associate deputy attorney general and senior member of Trump's legal defense team.
Sarah Lynch, Reuters
June 18, 2025
Kendra Wharton, a former member of President Donald Trump's criminal defense team who serves as the Justice Department's senior ethics official, plans to leave the department in July, she told Reuters. ​. . . Prior to joining the department, she worked with now Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and the now Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove to defend Trump against two federal indictments over Trump's retention of classified records and his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, as well as against New York state charges alleging he falsified records to cover up hush money paid to a porn star. . . . ​
How a former elite New York prosecutor handled defending the world’s most ‘complex’ client
Joe Miller, FT Magazine
September 12, 2024
. . . Wharton, who had been sitting in court during Cohen’s questioning by the prosecution, thought she had something. On the stand, Cohen had recalled, in vivid detail, a short phone call that took place on October 24 2016, in which he claimed to have told Trump that the deal with Daniels had been completed. The conversation was crucial to the prosecution, because it directly tied Trump to the hush-money scheme. . . .
Wharton began going through Cohen’s phone records from the 24th, only to make a startling discovery. The call in question, placed to Trump’s bodyguard, Keith Schiller, who was with Trump and could pass the phone to him, appeared to have been about another matter entirely. . . .
Kathleen Culliton, Raw Story
July 19, 2024
A former staff member of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has signed on to fight special counsel Jack Smith in the battle to keep former President Donald Trump's classified documents case dead, court records show.
Washington D.C. attorney Kendra Wharton Thursday filed notice in the 11th Circuit appeals court that she will represent Trump as Smith contests a controversial dismissal ruling from Florida federal judge Aileen Cannon, who was appointed by the former president. . . .
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Kyle Cheney and Erica Orden, POLITICO
September 26, 2023
Donald Trump has added at least two veteran attorneys to help defend him in his multiple criminal cases.
Emil Bove, a former federal prosecutor who was co-chief of the national security unit at the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office, and Kendra Wharton, a seasoned white collar defense lawyer with Capitol Hill ties, have signed onto the legal team organized by Trump attorney Todd Blanche.
In recent days, Bove joined Blanche’s firm, while Wharton launched her own firm and is expected to partner with Blanche, according to two people close to the legal team granted anonymity to discuss personnel decisions. . . .
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