Five takeaways from Smith's report on Trump's 2020 election case

Donald Trump's alleged attempts to reverse his 2020 election loss. are laid out in a final report by the special counsel who spent two years investigating him.

Much of what is in its 140 pages was already known thanks to a congressional investigation in 2022. and previous court filings by report author Jack Smith.

But it sheds new light on some of the evidence uncovered by Smith's team and outlines his own thinking on some of the finer points of law.

Trump, who returns to the White House next week, took no time to respond to the release of the report, maintaining his innocence and calling Smith “crazy.”

Here are five takeaways from the report.

The report refers to the riot at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. — when Trump supporters stormed the building to try to thwart the certification of Biden's victory after hearing a speech on the Washington Ellipse from Trump, the defeated candidate.

“Mr. Trump's words inspired his supporters to commit acts of physical violence,” the report said.

It goes on to note, “Although Mr. Trump at one point also told his supporters to 'peacefully and patriotically make (their) voices heard,' he used the word 'struggle' more than ten times in the speech.”

Trump vowed on his return to office to pardon many of those convicted of crimes related to the riot, which he tried to recast as a “day of love.”

His defenders dismissed the idea that he was deliberately inciting the crowd, pointing to the “peacemaking” quote highlighted by Smith above.

The report examines the grounds on which Trump was prosecuted, revealing that Smith's team had considered filing charges of “incitement to sedition” against the then-president.

The document says Trump's Ellipse speech on January 6, 2021. may meet the Supreme Court's definition of sedition, especially when viewed alongside his “long and fraudulent narrative of voter fraud.”

The report suggested that the day's violence was “foreseeable” for Trump, for example, and that he was trying to “exploit” the events to delay Biden's certification.

But Trump was ultimately not charged with incitement because Smith's team found no “direct evidence” of his intent to provoke the “full scope of violence” during the Capitol riot, making the conviction uncertain.

The document also notes that there were “other powerful charges available.”

Several men charged and convicted of involvement in the Capitol attack cited Trump's influence as a motivating factor, the report said.

He cited several of the rebels, including Alex Harkrider, who asked to be released from prison before the trial, saying that “like thousands of others” he was simply “responding to the requests” of Trump.

Another man, David Mehaffey, when asking for a commutation of the sentence, quoted Trump's speech and added: “I trusted the president and that was a big mistake.”

What Smith fails to acknowledge in his report is that it was in these people's legal interests to shift responsibility away from themselves.

In repeated conversations, day after day, Trump asked his vice president to use his ministerial position as Senate president to change the outcome of the election by not certifying the results, Smith's report said.

Pence refused, and Trump once told him that “hundreds of thousands” of people would “hate him to the core” if he didn't back down.

The campaign to pressure his deputy continued publicly. In a speech, Trump said he hopes Pence does, but if he doesn't, “I'm not going to like him as much.”

Just before leaving the White House to deliver his speech at the Ellipse before the attack on the Capitol, Trump called Pence one last time, Smith said. When the vice president told him during the call that he didn't have the authority to carry out Trump's wishes, Trump told staffers to reinsert some language he had drafted earlier aimed at Pence into his speech.

Moments after the speech, Trump supporters roamed the halls of the Capitol chanting “hang Mike Pence” and stormed the offices for him.

Smith outlined the experiences of law enforcement officers on duty when the mob stormed the Capitol building, during which at least 140 officers were attacked.

It states that 123 defendants were subsequently charged with using a deadly or dangerous weapon or causing grievous bodily harm to law enforcement.

“This violence took a lasting toll,” the report said, noting that 223 police officers suffered “'invisible injuries', including depression and other forms of psychological trauma.”

A footnote gives further insight into the officers' feelings of 'survivor's guilt', 'traumatic shock' and 'an inability to move on from that day'.