WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump “inspired his supporters to commit acts of physical violence” on Jan. 6 and knowingly spread an objectively false narrative about election fraud in the 2020 election, special counsel Jack Smith said in a report defending his investigation made public early Tuesday.
The 170-page report summarized Smith’s investigation into Trump’s efforts to maintain power after he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden, which culminated in the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Smith’s office conducted interviews with more than 250 individuals in connection with the investigation and federal grand jurors heard testimony from more than 55 witnesses as part of the probe.
Smith — who has been the subject of unending criticism by Trump, whose allies have suggested the special counsel should now face criminal charges — used the report to deliver a full-throated defense of his decision to bring charges.
“To all who know me well, the claim from Mr. Trump that my decisions as a prosecutor were influenced or directed by the Biden administration or other political actors is, in a word, laughable,” Smith wrote.
He opined that — if it wasn’t for his election in November that prevented the prosecution from moving forward — the case would have ended in the president-elect’s conviction.
“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,” Smith’s report stated.
Trump criticized the report on his website Truth Social, pointing out that it was released at 1 a.m. and repeating false claims about the House committee that investigated Jan. 6.
“Jack is a lamebrain prosecutor who was unable to get his case tried before the Election,” Trump wrote.
The report brings to an end a chapter in American history that saw, for the first time, a former president indicted on federal charges only to go on and be re-elected and, in a few days, returned to power. Trump fought to keep the report secret, but last-minute requests to prohibit the release were refused.
Smith’s report said that Trump’s actions, resulting in the interruption of America’s record of peaceful transfers of power, were without historical comparison and that Trump’s “political and financial status” as well as “the prospect of his future election to the presidency” made the investigation more challenging.
Trump’s “ability and willingness to use his influence and following on social media to target witnesses, courts, and Department employees” was a “significant challenge” for the office, causing the special counsel to “engage in time-consuming litigation to protect witnesses from threats and harassment,” the report said.
He pointed to Trump’s continued praise of Jan. 6 rioters as further evidence that the president-elect had intended to incite the attack.
“He has called them ‘patriots’ and ‘hostages,’ reminisced about January 6 as a ‘beautiful day,’ and championed the ‘January 6 Choir,’ a group of January 6 defendants who, because of their dangerousness, are detained at the District of Columbia jail,” Smith wrote.
The report says that Trump spread voter fraud claims that were “demonstrably and, in many cases, obviously false” and that Smith’s office determined that “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.”
Smith pointed to testimony that Trump privately admitted to losing, including telling an aide after watching Biden speak, “can you believe I lost to this f’ing guy?”
Smith, who resigned Friday, also wrote a second volume of his report focused on the separate charges brought against Trump over his handling of classified documents, but that part of the report was not released because charges against two of Trump’s co-defendants are still pending.
Smith’s report stated that prosecutors would have been able to show that Trump decided before the election that he would allege fraud whether it occurred or not, and that after he lost he “adhered to that plan — repeating false claims that he knew to be untrue.”
Trump, who was separately convicted of 34 felonies in connection with hush money payments to an adult film star during his 2016 campaign, had denied wrongdoing in connection with the effort to overturn the 2020 election. A federal grand jury indicted Trump on four felony charges — conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights — related to Jan. 6 and the efforts leading up to it. Under long-standing Justice Department policy that prevents the sitting president from being tried, the charges were dropped upon Trump’s victory in November.
Smith wrote in his report that his office also considered charging Trump under the Insurrection Act, but ultimately concluded that it would be difficult to prove given the complicated legal definitions of “insurrection” and whether incitement had occurred.
Smith also provided little details about the six unindicted co-conspirators who were included in the original indictment. He did not name them, saying the report should not seen as exhonerating them. He did, however, reveal that while continuing to investigate co-conspirators, the special counsel referred to an U.S. attorney’s office that “an investigative subject may have committed unrelated crimes.”
While Trump has never publicly conceded that he knew he lost the 2020 election but continued to insist otherwise, a federal grand jury said the false claims he spread were “unsupported, objectively unreasonable, and ever-changing.”
The delay strategy Trump’s legal team used ultimately allowed him to avoid trial before American voters elected him again last year and resulted in a Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity that will grant him wider latitude in office.
The report was released as Trump says he is preparing to pardon an untold number of Jan. 6 defendants. More than 1,580 defendants have been charged and more than 1,270 have been convicted on charges ranging from unlawful parading to seditious conspiracy. More than 700 defendants have either already completed their sentences or were never sentenced to any period of incarceration in the first place. Asked whether he could pardon rioters who committed violence against police officers, Trump did not rule it out.
Among those seeking pardons is former Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio, who was found guilty of seditious conspiracy in 2023 and sentenced to 22 years in federal prison, the longest sentence given to any Jan. 6 defendant. Vice President-elect JD Vance said over the weekend that those who committed violence should “obviously” not be pardoned. The mother of one Jan. 6 rioter who was shot and killed during the attack said she received a call last week from Trump, who told Jan. 6 defendants to “keep their chins up.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
