
WASHINGTON – Special Counsel Jack Smith said his team “stood up for the rule of law” by investigating President-elect Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, writing in: (*6*)long-awaited report announced Tuesday that he fully supports his decision to bring criminal charges, which he believes would have resulted in Trump’s conviction had voters not returned Trump to the White House.
“The guiding principle behind all of Mr. Trump’s criminal efforts was fraud – knowingly false claims of voter fraud – and the evidence shows that Mr. Trump weaponized these lies to defeat a function of the federal government that is fundamental to the democratic process in the United States,” the report said.
» READ MORE: ‘Make ’em riot’: Court filings show prosecutors say Trump and his allies tried to overturn Pennsylvania’s 2020 vote.
The report, released just days before Trump returns to office on Jan. 20, focuses fresh attention on Republicans’ frantic but unsuccessful efforts to stay in power in 2020 after losing to Democrat Joe Biden. With prosecutors closed in the wake of Trump’s 2024 election victory, the document is expected to be the Justice Department’s final chronicle of a murky chapter in American history that threatened to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power that has long been a bedrock of democracy, and additions to already published indictments and reports.
Trump responded early Tuesday morning on his Truth Social platform, claiming he was “totally innocent” and calling Smith “a prosecutor who was unable to try his case before the election.” He added: “THE VOTERS HAVE SPOKEN!!!”
In August 2023, Trump was charged with seeking to overturn the election, but the case was delayed by appeals and ultimately narrowed significantly by the conservative-majority Supreme Court, which ruled for the first time that former presidents enjoy broad criminal immunity from due to official acts. As Smith’s report states, the decision left open unresolved legal issues that would likely require another trip to the Supreme Court for the case to move forward.
Although Smith tried to save the indictment, the panel dismissed it in November because of a long-standing Justice Department policy that states sitting presidents cannot face federal prosecution.
“The Department’s view that the Constitution prohibits further impeachment and prosecution of the President is categorical and does not take into account the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the evidence presented by the Government, or the merits of the prosecution, all of which the Office fully supports,” the report said. “Indeed, but for Mr. Trump’s election and imminent return to the presidency, the Office has assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial.”
The Justice Department delivered the report to Congress early Tuesday morning after a judge refused to take defense action to block his release. A separate volume of the report focusing on Trump’s collection of secret documents at Mar-a-Lago – activities that formed the basis of a separate indictment against Trump – will remain secret for now.
The report spares no details about Trump’s plans to overturn the presidential contest, accusing him of an “unprecedented criminal attempt to overturn the lawful election results in order to maintain power.”
It mentions his role in trying to force the Justice Department to exploit law enforcement to advance his personal interests, participating in a scheme to recruit fraudulent voters in battleground states Biden won and leading an “angry mob to the U.S. Capitol to obstruct Congress to certify the presidential election and then use rioter violence to further delay it.”
It also documents his conflict with Vice President Mike Pence over Trump’s demands that he refuse to certify the voter count to Congress on January 6, 2021. It is said that just before leaving the White House to deliver a speech at the Ellipse that day, he called Pence one last time and that when the vice president told him he planned to issue a public statement saying he did not have the authority to do so , which Trump requested, “Mr. Trump expressed anger at him. He then directed staff to reincorporate into the planned Ellipse speech language that he had previously drafted and addressed to Mr. Pence.”
While most of the details of Trump’s efforts to overturn the election are already well known, the document provides for the first time Smith’s detailed assessment of his investigation, as well as his defense of criticism from Trump and his allies that the investigation was politicized or that he cooperated with White Home – he called this assessment “ridiculous”.
“While we were unable to prosecute the cases brought before us, I believe our team stood up for the rule of law,” Smith wrote in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland accompanying the report. “I believe the example our team has set for others to fight for justice no matter the personal cost is significant.”
The special counsel also outlined challenges faced in the investigation, including Trump’s assertion of executive privilege to prevent witnesses from testifying. which forced prosecutors into sealed court battles before the case was arraigned.
Another “significant challenge” was Trump’s “ability and willingness to exploit his influence and social media following to target witnesses, courts and prosecutors,” prompting prosecutors to seek orders of silence to protect potential witnesses from harassment, he wrote Smith.
“Mr. Trump’s exploit of intimidation and harassment during the investigation was nothing fresh, as evidenced by his actions during the conspiracy indictments,” Smith wrote.
“A fundamental element of Mr. Trump’s conduct underlying the allegations in the election case was his exploit of social media – then Twitter – to publicly attack and attempt to influence state and federal officials, judges and election workers who refused to support false claims that the election was stolen or who otherwise resisted complicity in Trump’s agenda,” he added.
Smith also explained for the first time the thinking behind his team’s prosecutorial decisions, writing that his office decided not to charge Trump with incitement, in part because of free speech concerns, or with insurrection because he was the sitting president at the time and there was no question as to the commencement of a trial in connection with a crime for which there has been no previous prosecution.