Donald Trump would have been convicted if he wasn’t elected: special counsel
Donald Trump would have been convicted for his alleged effort to overturn the result of the 2020 election if he hadn’t been elected four years later, said a report published on Tuesday.
Donald Trump would have been convicted for his alleged effort to overturn the result of the 2020 election if he hadn’t been elected four years later, said a report by special counsel Jack Smith.
“The throughline of all of Mr Trump’s criminal efforts was deceit – knowingly false claims of election fraud – and the evidence shows that Mr Trump used these lies as a weapon to defeat a federal government function foundational to the United States’ democratic process,” the report, published on Tuesday, says.
The report, arriving just days before Mr Trump is to return to office on January 20, focuses fresh attention on his frantic but failed effort to cling to power in 2020.
With the prosecution closed thanks to Mr Trump’s election victory, the document is expected to be the final Justice Department chronicle of a dark chapter in American history that threatened to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power, a bedrock of democracy for centuries, and complements already released indictments and reports.
Mr Trump responded early on Tuesday with a post on his Truth Social platform, claiming he was “totally innocent” and calling Mr Smith “a lamebrain prosecutor who was unable to get his case tried before the Election”.
“THE VOTERS HAVE SPOKEN!!!” he wrote.
Mr Trump had been indicted in August 2023 on charges of working to overturn the election, but the case was delayed by appeals and ultimately significantly narrowed by a conservative-majority Supreme Court that held for the first time that former presidents enjoy sweeping immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts.
Though Mr Smith sought to salvage the indictment, the team dismissed it entirely in November because of longstanding Justice Department policy that says sitting presidents cannot face federal prosecution.
“The Department’s view that the Constitution prohibits the continued indictment and prosecution of a President is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the Government’s proof, or the merits of the prosecution, which the Office stands fully behind,” the report says.
“Indeed, but for Mr Trump’s election and imminent return to the Presidency, the Office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial.”
The Justice Department sent the report to congress on Tuesday after a judge refused a defence effort to block its release. A separate volume of the report focused on Mr Trump’s hoarding of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, actions that formed the basis of a separate indictment against him, will remain under wraps for now.
Though most of the details of Mr Trump’s efforts to undo the election are already well established, the document includes for the first time a detailed assessment from Mr Smith about his investigation.
“While we were not able to bring the cases we charged to trial, I believe the fact that our team stood up for the rule of law matters,” Mr Smith wrote in a letter to Attorney-General Merrick Garland attached to the report.
“I believe the example our team set for others to fight for justice without regard for the personal costs matters.”
The special counsel also laid out the challenges it faced in its investigation, including Mr Trump’s assertion of executive privilege to try to block witnesses from providing evidence, which forced prosecutors into sealed court battles before the case was charged.
Another “significant challenge” was Mr Trump’s “ability and willingness to use his influence and following on social media to target witnesses, courts, prosecutors”, which led prosecutors to seek a gag order to protect potential witnesses from harassment, Mr Smith wrote.
“Mr Trump’s resort to intimidation and harassment during the investigation was not new, as demonstrated by his actions during the charged conspiracies,” he wrote.
“A fundamental component of Mr Trump’s conduct underlying the charges in the Election Case was his pattern of using social media – at the time, Twitter – to publicly attack and seek to influence state and federal officials, judges, and election workers who refused to support false claims that the election had been stolen or who otherwise resisted complicity in Mr Trump’s scheme.”
AP
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