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Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith’s scathing report on Donald Trump’s determined efforts to upend the 2020 presidential election was released after midnight Tuesday and insists that the evidence against him was strong enough to “obtain and sustain a conviction” for election interference had he not become president-elect in November.
The 45th president “inspired his supporters to commit acts of physical violence” on January 6 2021 when they stormed the US Capitol and knowingly spread a false narrative about election fraud in the 2020 election, Smith determined in a report on his investigation.
“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,” stated the 170-page report.
In different sections, the report goes into Trump putting “pressure on state officials”, as well as pressure on his own deputy Mike Pence to weaponize his ceremonial role in certifying the election results in Congress and discusses the “fraudulent electors plan”.
Trump, who takes office as America’s 47th president on January 20, has not been exonerated for his “unprecedented criminal effort” to subvert the 2020 election, the report flatly stated.
In response, the president-elect took to his Truth Social platform to blast Smith as “deranged” in two separate messages.
Trump accused the former special prosecutor of publishing the report because he could not bring a successful prosectution. He said the document in question was “based on information that the Unselect Committee of Political Hacks and Thugs ILLEGALLY DESTROYED AND DELETED”.
Trump alleges the information to which he alludes was destroyed because it showed how “totally innocent” he was.
“Jack is a lamebrain prosecutor who was unable to get his case tried before the Election, which I won in a landslide.”
In a subsequent message, Trump insisted again that “the Unselect Committee illegally destroyed and deleted all of the evidence”, once more providing no basis to support his claims.
Despite claims by Trump’s acolytes, notably advisor Jason Miller, there is no evidence to suggest that the committee destroy any evidence.
Earlier this month, House Speaker Mike Johnson announced that there would be a formal probe into the bipartisan House January 6 committee led by Bennie Thompson that investigated Trump’s efforts to subvert the 2020 result .
Smith took action to drop his case against Trump in November because of the long-standing protocol by the Justice Department not to bring charges against a sitting president.
Trump spread claims that were “demonstrably and, in many cases, obviously false,” the report stated.
“Trump knew that there was no outcome-determinative fraud in the 2020 election, that many of the specific claims that he made were untrue, and that he had lost the election,” it added.
In a letter accompanying the released report, Smith defends his integrity and that of his team.
“I can assure you that neither l nor the prosecutors on my team would have tolerated or taken part in any action by our Office for partisan political purposes,” he wrote.
“My Office had one north star: to follow the facts and law wherever they led. Nothing more and nothing less.”
He called Trump’s accusations about him and his team “laughable”.
A second volulme of Smith’s report addresses separate charges against Trump over his handling of classified documents after he left the White House during his first term.
That volume was not released because charges against two of Trump’s co-defendants, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, are still pending, even thought charges were dropped against the president-elect.
Trump’s team of lawyers scrambled shortly before Smith’s election interference report was released to attempt again to block it, but failed.
Smith resigned on Friday.
