report detailing his team’s findings about Trump’s efforts to subvert democracy was released by the justice department early on Tuesday.
Following the insurrection on 6 January, 2021, Smith was appointed as special counsel to investigate Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. His investigation culminated in a detailed report, submitted to the attorney general, Merrick Garland.
Volume one of the report meticulously outlines Trump’s actions, including his efforts to pressure state officials, assemble alternate electors and encourage supporters to protest against the election results.
Here is the first take from our Washington DC bureau chief, David Smith.
The former US justice department special counsel Jack Smith has said his team “stood up for the rule of law” as it investigated Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election – writing in a much-anticipated report released on Tuesday that he stands fully behind his decision to bring criminal charges against the president-elect.
The report, which comes just days before Trump’s return to the White House on 20 January, focuses fresh attention on his frantic but failed effort to cling to power in 2020. With the prosecution foreclosed thanks to 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.
The justice department transmitted the report to Congress early on Tuesday after a judge refused to block its release.
Though most of the details of Trump’s efforts to undo the election are already well established, the document includes for the first time a detailed assessment from Smith about his investigation, as well as a defence by Smith against criticism by Trump and his allies that the investigation was politicised.
“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,” Smith wrote in a letter to the 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.”
