US special counsel Jack Smith concluded that Donald Trump engaged in an “unprecedented criminal effort” to stay in power after losing the 2020 election, but the president-elect’s election victory in November prevented the case from being brought to trial, according to a report. report. published on Tuesday.
The report details Smith’s decision to file a four-count indictment against Trump, accusing him of conspiring to obstruct the collection and certification of votes following his 2020 loss to Democratic President Joe Biden.
He concludes that the evidence would have been sufficient to convict Trump at trial, but his imminent return to the presidency, scheduled for January 20, made this impossible.
Smith, who has faced relentless criticism from Trump, also defended his investigation and the prosecutors who worked on it.
“Mr. Trump’s claim that my decisions as a prosecutor were influenced or directed by the Biden administration or other political actors is, in a word, ridiculous,” Smith wrote in a letter detailing his report.
After the publication, Trump, in a post on his Truth Social site, called Smith a “dumb prosecutor who couldn’t get his case tried before the election.”
Trump’s lawyers, in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland made public by the Justice Department, called the report a “politically motivated attack” and said releasing it before Trump’s return to the White House would harm the presidential transition.
Much of the evidence cited in the report has previously been made public.
But it includes some new details, such as that prosecutors considered charging Trump with inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol under a U.S. law known as the Insurrection Act.
Prosecutors ultimately concluded that such a charge posed legal risks and that there was insufficient evidence that Trump intended to carry out “the full extent” of violence during the riot, a failed attempt by a mob of his supporters to prevent Congress from will certify the 2020 elections.
The indictment accuses Trump of conspiring to obstruct election certification, defraud the United States with accurate election results, and deprive American voters of their right to vote.
Smith’s office determined that charges may have been warranted against some accomplices accused of helping Trump carry out the scheme, but the report says prosecutors did not reach final conclusions.
Several of Trump’s former lawyers had previously been identified as co-conspirators referenced in the indictment.
A second section of the report details Smith’s case, accusing Trump of illegally withholding sensitive national security documents after leaving the White House in 2021.
The Justice Department has agreed not to make that part public while legal proceedings against two Trump associates charged in the case continue.
Smith, who left the Justice Department last week, dropped both cases against Trump after he won last year’s election, citing a long-standing Justice Department policy against prosecuting a sitting president. Neither of them went to trial.
Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges. Trump, who regularly attacks Smith as “deranged,” described the cases as politically motivated attempts to damage his campaign and political movement.
Trump and his two former co-defendants in the classified documents case attempted to block the release of the report, days before Trump returns to office on January 20. The courts rejected their demands to prevent its publication altogether.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who presided over the documents case, ordered the Justice Department to halt plans for now to allow certain high-ranking members of Congress to privately review the documents section of the report.
Prosecutors gave a detailed look at their case against Trump in previous court filings. In 2022, a congressional panel 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 also attempted to use fraudulent pools of electors who pledged to vote for Trump. , in states that Biden actually won. in an attempt to prevent Congress from certifying Biden’s victory.
The effort culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed Congress in a failed attempt to stop lawmakers from certifying the vote.
Smith’s case faced legal hurdles even before Trump’s election victory. It was on hold for months as Trump pressed his claim that he could not be prosecuted for official actions taken as president.
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority largely supported it, granting former presidents broad immunity from criminal prosecution.
