Melville House is crashing a trade paperback edition of U.S. special counsel Jack Smith’s final report to attorney general Merrick Garland on his investigation into president-elect Donald J. Trump’s effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
According to the announcement, Melville is aiming to get The Jack Smith Report: Report on Efforts to Interfere With the Lawful Transfer of Power Following the 2020 Presidential Election by Donald Trump and Others into bookstores “shortly after” Trump is inaugurated on Monday, January 20. “The first 100 days of a presidential administration are usually very telling for what’s to come,” explained Melville House publisher Dennis Johnson, in a statement. “We felt this report should be part of the telling.”
Johnson added that with Trump threatening to sue publishers that publish books critical of him as well as ongoing book bans, “we were concerned that all the intimidation would limit the circulation of this report, especially to people who prefer print books.” The original report was released by the government in a digital edition on January 14.
Melville House has had success publishing editions of government reports. In 2019, it released The Mueller Report: The Findings of the Office of the Special Counsel on Russian Interference in the 2016 Election as a mass market paperback, and the book became a bestseller for the company.