Donald Trump engaged in an “unprecedented criminal attempt” to “unlawfully retain power” after losing the 2020 election, Jack Smith said in a report released early Tuesday by Dept. US Justice, with the special counsel expressing confidence in the prospects for a conviction at trial that will not happen now that Trump is returning to the White House.
The report details the special counsel's decision to bring a four-count indictment against Trump, accusing him of conspiring to interfere with the collection and verification of votes after his 2020 loss to ' Democratic President Joe Biden.
He concludes that the evidence would have been “sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction” at trial, but his election victory on 5 November effectively ended the case. Previous instructions from the Department of Justice have advised against impeaching a sitting president, and Trump would undoubtedly have moved to close the probes after returning to office on January 20.
Smith's report contended that Trump's claims about voter fraud — whether unsubstantiated allegations of non-citizen voting or voting machine tampering — were “obvious and, in in many cases, obviously false.”
“Trump used these lies,” Smith writes, “as a tool to defeat federal government action that is fundamental to the democratic process of the United States.” “
Vice President Trump himself and other high-ranking administration officials, as well as state officials closest to the election administration, disputed his fraud claims both publicly and privately.
“Mr. Trump's false claims have been repeated repeatedly, often directly to him by the people best placed to know the truth,” Smith wrote.
Trump's former lawyer, William Barr, has previously said that he told the president at the time that there was no widespread fraud in the election, and that cybersecurity a split in the Trump administration came to the same conclusion. This came before a crowd of his supporters tried to stop Congress from certifying the election on January 6, 2021, leading to violence at the Capitol.
Resolution to avoid charge of Sedition Act explained
Much of the evidence cited in the report has previously been published.
But it includes new details, such as that prosecutors considered charging Trump with inciting that attack on the US Capitol under the US law known as the Sedition Act.
Prosecutors ultimately decided that such a charge was a legal threat and that there was insufficient evidence that Trump intended the “full range” of violence during the riot.
“The office has found no case in which a criminal defendant has been charged with terrorism for working within the government to maintain power, rather than overthrowing or impeding it from the side.” – out,” said Smith.
The indictment charged Trump with conspiring to block voter certification, deceiving the United States about accurate election results and depriving US voters of their voting rights.
Smith's office concluded that charges may be warranted against some of the co-conspirators who are accused of helping Trump carry out the plan, but the report said prosecutors did not reach any -final decisions.
Several of Trump's former lawyers were previously identified as co-conspirators mentioned in the indictment.
Prosecutors detailed their case against Trump in previous court filings. A congressional panel in 2022 released its own 700-page account of Trump's actions after the 2020 election.
Both investigations concluded that Trump spread false claims of widespread voter fraud after the 2020 election and pressured state lawmakers not to certify the vote, and ultimately, he also tried to use fake groups of voters pledged to vote for Trump in states won by Biden, in an effort to stop Congress from confirming Biden's victory.
The effort culminated in the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol, when a crowd of Trump supporters stormed Congress in a failed attempt to stop lawmakers from confirmation of the vote.
Smith's report noted that Trump's pressure campaign was selective.
“Importantly, he made election bids only to state legislators and executives who shared his political affiliation and were his political supporters, and only in states he lost,” he wrote. .
Smith's case had legal problems even before Trump won the election. It was stalled for months as Trump pressed his claim that he could not be prosecuted for official acts taken as president.
The Supreme Court's conservative majority largely sided with him, giving former presidents broad immunity from criminal prosecution.
“Prior to this case, no court had found that presidents were immune from criminal liability for their official acts, and no text in the Constitution grants criminal immunity to the president clearly,” Smith wrote.
“The (Special Counsel) office proceeded from the same foundation,” he said.
After the release, Trump, in a post on his Truth Social site, called Smith a “lamebrain prosecutor who was unable to try his case before the election.” “
In a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland released by the US Department of Justice, Trump's lawyers called the report a “politically motivated attack” and said releasing it before Trump's return to the White House damage to the presidential movement.
Report the documents held
A second section of the report details Smith's case accusing Trump of illegally retaining sensitive national security documents after he left the White House in 2021, leading to impeachment. criminal law too.
Smith was appointed by Garland to investigate both cases in November 2022 – the same month Trump announced his plans to contest the 2024 election.
The Justice Department has promised not to release that portion while legal proceedings continue against two Trump associates accused in the case, Walt Bulls and Carlos De Oliver.
The charges against Trump themselves were dropped in a ruling by US District Judge Aileen Cannon, which Smith's team had planned to appeal before Trump won the November 5 election.
Cannon has now ordered the Justice Department to halt plans to allow some senior members of Congress to privately review the document portion of the report.
Smith, who resigned last week and has faced relentless criticism from Trump, also dismissed his investigation and the prosecutors who worked on it.
US president Donald Trump will not have to serve a prison sentence or pay a fine, but he will become the first US president with a criminal record when he takes office later this month after a judge released him unconditionally in his hush-money trial.
“The claim by Mr. Trump that the Biden administration or other political actors influenced or directed him is, in a word, laughable,” Smith wrote in a letter detailing his report.
Trump was convicted in a New York state case on 34 felony counts involving a scheme to conceal business records in connection with payments to a porn actress, but a judge last week spared a fine or a prison sentence for him. The conviction will still ensure that Trump is the first president to take office with a felony conviction on his record.
