Special counsel reveals new details of Trump bid to overturn 2020 election

Special counsel Jack Smith has laid bare shocking new evidence about Donald Trump’s bid to overturn the 2020 election.

Explosive new evidence has been revealed in a bid to revive the criminal prosecution of Donald Trump over his effort to overturn his election defeat four years ago.

A month before Americans decide whether to return the former president to the White House, special counsel Jack Smith laid out his most comprehensive case yet to overcome Mr Trump’s claims of immunity and force him to stand trial.

In a 165-page court filing, Mr Smith revealed fresh details of Mr Trump’s desperate bid to convince his vice president Mike Pence to block the certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 victory.

Mr Pence refused his demands, even when the Republican’s supporters violently stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, which prompted the then-president to tweet: “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done.”

Donald Trump and Special counsel Jack Smith. Picture: AFP

That sparked the Secret Service to rush Mr Pence to a secure location, but when an aide informed Mr Trump in an effort to encourage him to ensure his safety, he replied: “So what?”

The court document also spelled out how Mr Trump told his advisers before the election that he planned to “declare victory before all the ballots were counted”. When his false claims of fraud were challenged by aides in the aftermath, he said that “the details don’t matter”.

And in a conversation aboard Marine One with his wife Melania and other family members, Mr Trump told them: “It doesn’t matter if you won or lost the election. You still have to fight like hell.”

The prosecution brought by Mr Smith – who was appointed to investigate Mr Trump by the Department of Justice – was knocked off course earlier this year when the Supreme Court upheld Mr Trump’s claim that he was immune from prosecution for his official actions.

Mr Smith used the new court filing to argue that “the defendant must stand trial for his private crimes as would any other citizen”, sharing evidence from witnesses who testified before a grand jury about how Mr Trump “resorted to crimes to try to stay in office”.

“The defendant asserts that he is immune from prosecution for his criminal scheme to overturn the 2020 presidential election because, he claims, it entailed official conduct. Not so,” the special counsel said.

Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event at Discovery World in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, this week. Picture: AFP

Lawyers for Mr Trump, who is neck-and-neck with Vice President Kamala Harris in this year’s election race, tried to quash the filing before it was unsealed by a federal court judge.

Mr Trump lashed out at what he said was a “falsehood ridden, unconstitutional” document that was “another obvious attempt by the Harris-Biden regime to undermine and weaponise American democracy and interfere in the 2024 presidential election”.

“This entire case is a partisan, unconstitutional witch hunt that should be dismissed entirely,” Mr Trump said on social media.

If Mr Trump wins November’s election, he will direct the Department of Justice to abandon the case against him. If he loses, Mr Smith is expected to continue pushing for a trial which could ultimately put the former president in prison.

According to Mr Smith’s filing, Mr Pence repeatedly urged Mr Trump to accept his defeat and “take a bow”, even telling him he could run again four years later if he did.

“I don’t know, 2024 is so far off,” Mr Trump replied.

In a meeting on January 4 in the White House, Mr Trump claimed to have won every state by hundreds of thousands of votes and argued that “when there’s fraud the rules get changed”, but Mr Pence said: “I’m not seeing this argument working.”

The next day, Mr Trump threatened to publicly criticise him and warned he had to be “tough tomorrow”. And then on January 6, he egged on his supporters at the Capitol, who chanted “Hang Mike Pence” and “Traitor Pence”.

Mr Pence has since refused to endorse Mr Trump’s 2024 campaign, saying that “anyone who puts themselves over the Constitution should never be president of the United States”.

Originally published as Special counsel reveals new details of Trump bid to overturn 2020 election