(Bloomberg) — Special Counsel Jack Smith said in a report to the US Justice Department that President-elect Donald Trump would have been convicted for trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election had the case gone to trial.
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The DOJ released Smith’s 137-page report on the allegations that Donald Trump illegally conspired to overturn the 2020 election early Tuesday after a week of legal wrangling over whether the document could be made public. Trump and his associates had made emergency requests to federal courts to block it from being released. Had they succeeded, the new Trump administration could have buried it for good.
“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,” according to the report.
Smith’s final report represents the culmination of one of the most historic and controversial investigations in US history that spanned more than two years, cost more than $35 million and roiled legal and political worlds. The case raised unprecedented legal issues in that it centered on a former US president who became president-elect before it was resolved.
Trump and his allies have long railed against Smith’s investigation and findings, saying they represent a baseless political attack. The president-elect, in his first comment on the report after its release, maintained his innocence while deriding Smith as a “a lamebrain prosecutor who was unable to get his case tried before the Election, which I won in a landslide.” Trump also complained in a subsequent post about the report being released in the middle of the night.
Smith obtained a grand jury indictment against Trump in August 2023 charging him with four criminal counts, including conspiracy to defraud the US, obstructing an official proceeding and conspiracy against the rights of citizens to have their votes counted.
The prosecution of Trump never came close to going to trial. Smith dropped both cases against Trump after he won the 2024 presidential election, citing Justice Department policy that prohibits prosecution of a sitting president. Smith has resigned as special counsel and “separated” from the Justice Department, according to a Jan. 11 court filing from the government.
The report highlights new details about the extensive effort that Trump went through to try to get then Vice President Mike Pence to use his powers to reject congressional certification of the 2020 election. Trump’s plot culminated in a deadly attack on the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 by a mob of his supporters.
“In repeated conversations, day after day, Mr. Trump pressed Mr. Pence to use his ministerial position as President of the Senate to change the election outcome, often by citing false claims of election fraud as justification; he even falsely told Mr. Pence that the ‘Justice Department [was] finding major infractions,’” according to the report.
Trump plotted with other individuals described in the report as co-conspirators to advance his pressure campaign on Pence, according to the report.
“Mr. Trump wanted no one else speaking with Vice President Pence because he and co-conspirators were already implementing a secret plan to use Mr. Pence’s ministerial role as President of the Senate to Mr. Trump’s advantage,” Smith wrote.
Trump called Pence on Jan. 6 before giving a speech to a crowd of his supporters gathered near the White House and became angry when the vice president said he planned to make a public statement saying he didn’t have the authority to overturn the election.
Trump expressed anger at Pence and then directed his aides to insert language into his planned speech targeting Pence, according to the report. Trump told his supporters during the rally that Pence could change the election results.
“The lie regarding Mr. Pence was particularly deceptive because Mr. Trump knew what his supporters in the crowd did not: that Mr. Pence had just told him in no uncertain terms that he would not do what Mr. Trump was demanding,” according to the report.
Smith documented efforts by aides begging Trump to help stop his supporters while they were attacking the Capitol after his speech. But Trump refused for several hours and sat in the White House watching television coverage of the riot and looking at Twitter on his phone, according to the report.
After watching an interview on television in which an individual marching to the Capitol expressed anger at Pence, Trump further fueled the riot by posting on Twitter that Pence didn’t have the courage to protect the country, according to the report.
“The rioters at the Capitol had been motivated and directed by Mr. Trump, and he continued to resist advisors’ requests to direct them to leave,” Smith wrote.
Smith also concluded that Trump’s ongoing description of those who have been prosecuted for their actions at the Capitol on Jan. 6 as being patriots and hostages is further evidence Trump’s guilt. “Mr. Trump has provided additional evidence of his intent by continuing to support and ally himself with the people who attacked the Capitol,” according to the report.
Smith also investigated and charged Trump for mishandling classified documents and obstructing justice after he left the White House. Smith submitted a confidential report to Garland about that case, but Garland has decided to keep that report secret from the public, citing pending criminal proceedings. Garland wanted to provide copies of that report to several senior members of Congress, but has been prevented by a court ruling from doing so.
–With assistance from Alex Millson.
(Updates with more details from report in penultimate paragraphs.)
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