In a report to Congress released early Tuesday, special counsel Jack Smith said his office had sufficient evidence to “obtain and sustain” a trial conviction of President-elect Donald Trump for efforts to overturn Trump’s loss to President Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
Smith said Trump “resorted to a series of criminal efforts to retain power” after it became clear that he had lost and that legal ways to challenge the results had failed.
“This included attempts to induce state officials to ignore true vote counts; to manufacture fraudulent slates of presidential electors in seven states that he had lost; to force Justice Department officials and his own Vice President, Michael R. Pence, to act in contravention of their oaths and to instead advance Mr. Trump’s personal interests; and, on January 6 , 2021, to direct an angry mob to the United States Capitol to obstruct the congressional certification of the presidential election and then leverage rioters,” Smith said in his report.
Smith said Trump acted both in his private capacity as an election candidate, as well as with the help of multiple co-conspirators, and that Trump tried to use “the power and authority of the United States Government in furtherance of his scheme.”
The report further says that Trump’s false claims, such as votes being cast by large numbers of dead people or ineligible voters, or that voting machines had changed votes for Trump into votes for Biden, were “demonstrably and, in many cases, obviously false.”
Trump has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and attacked the special counsel’s work as politically motivated.
He responded to the report’s release early Tuesday with a post on his Truth Social platform calling Smith “a lamebrain prosecutor.”
“Deranged Jack Smith was unable to successfully prosecute the Political Opponent of his ‘boss,’ Crooked Joe Biden, so he ends up writing yet another ‘Report’ based on information that the Unselect Committee of Political Hacks and Thugs ILLEGALLY DESTROYED AND DELETED, because it showed how totally innocent I was, and how completely guilty Nancy Pelosi, and others, were,” Trump said.
Trump is set to be inaugurated for a new term next week after defeating Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election. During the 2024 campaign, Trump denied he lost the 2020 vote, including in a September debate with Harris.
Tuesday’s report release came a day after U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon cleared the Justice Department to make public the portion of Smith’s report that dealt with Trump’s efforts to cling to power.
Judge Cannon, who was appointed by Trump, had earlier blocked the release of Smith’s full report, which also includes an unreleased section about accusations that Trump illegally retained classified documents after he left office.
Smith sought to prosecute Trump on both matters, while Trump denied wrongdoing.
Judge Cannon dismissed the classified documents case in July, ruling that Smith was illegally appointed.
The Supreme Court also ruled in July that presidents have broad immunity from prosecution for official acts, which blunted Smith’s efforts in the election interference case.
After Trump defeated Harris, the Justice Department dropped both cases against Trump, citing longstanding policy against prosecuting a sitting U.S. leader.
Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press and Reuters
