Donald Trump launched an “unprecedented criminal attempt” to “unlawfully maintain power” after losing the 2020 election, Jack Smith said in a report released Tuesday morning by the U.S. Department of Justice, and the special counsel expressed confidence in his prospects for a conviction at trial , which will not take place now that Trump returns to the White House.
The report detailed the special counsel's decision to bring a four-count indictment against Trump, accusing him of conspiring to obstruct the collection and certification of votes following his 2020 loss to Democratic President Joe Biden.
The summary states that the evidence would have been “sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction” at trial, but his November 5 election victory effectively ended the case. Previous Justice Department guidance advised against charging a sitting president, and Trump would undoubtedly choose to close the investigation when he returns to office on January 20.
Smith's report concluded that Trump's claims of voter fraud – whether they were baseless allegations about non-citizen voting or manipulation of voting machines – were “obviously and in many cases demonstrably false.”
“Trump used these lies,” Smith writes, “as a weapon to defeat a function of the federal government that is fundamental to the democratic process in the United States.”
Trump's vice president and other senior administration officials, as well as government officials closest to the election administration, have pushed back against his claims of fraud in both the public and private spheres.
“Mr. Trump's false claims have been repeatedly debunked, often right in front of him, by those best placed to verify their veracity,” Smith wrote.
Trump's former attorney general, William Barr, previously said he told the president at the time that there was no widespread fraud in the election and that cybersecurity division within the Trump administration came to the same conclusion. This happened before a mob of his supporters tried to stop Congress from certifying the January 6, 2021 elections, leading to violence at the Capitol.
The decision to abandon the Insurrection Act has been explained
Much of the evidence cited in the report has previously been made public.
But it includes some new details, such as the fact that prosecutors were considering charging Trump with inciting the attack on the U.S. Capitol under a U.S. law known as the Insurrection Act.
Prosecutors ultimately concluded that such a charge posed legal risks and that there was insufficient evidence that Trump intended to use the “full extent” of violence during the riot.
“The Bureau has found no case in which a criminal defendant was charged with insurrection for working within the government to maintain power rather than to overthrow or thwart it from outside,” Smith said.
The indictment charged Trump with conspiring to obstruct the certification of the election, deceive the United States about accurate election results and deprive American voters of the right to vote.
Smith's office determined that charges against some co-conspirators accused of helping Trump carry out the scheme may have been warranted, but the report shows that prosecutors have not reached a final conclusion.
Several of Trump's former lawyers were previously identified as co-conspirators named in the indictment.
Prosecutors have detailed the case against Trump in previous court filings. The 2022 congressional panel released its own 700-page account of Trump's actions after the 2020 election.
Both investigations found that Trump spread false claims of widespread voter fraud after the 2020 election and pressured state legislators not to certify the vote, and ultimately also attempted to exploit fraudulent groups of voters who pledged to vote for Trump in states actually won by Biden, in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying Biden's victory.
The efforts culminated in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of Trump supporters attacked Congress in a failed attempt to stop lawmakers from certifying the vote.
Smith's report noted that Trump's pressure campaign was selective.
“Importantly, he filed electoral claims only with state legislators and executives who shared his political affiliation and were his political supporters, and only in states he lost,” he wrote.
Smith's case faced legal hurdles even before Trump won the election. They were put on hold for months while Trump insisted he couldn't be prosecuted for official actions he took as president.
The Supreme Court's conservative majority largely sided with him, granting former presidents broad immunity from criminal prosecution.
“Prior to this case, no court has held that presidents are immune from criminal liability for their official acts, and no text of the Constitution grants the president such immunity from prosecution,” Smith wrote.
“The (special counsel) office came from the same premise,” he said.
After his release, Trump, in a post on his Truth Social website, called Smith a “brained prosecutor who couldn't try his case before the election.”
In a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, made public by the U.S. Department of Justice, Trump's lawyers called the report a “politically motivated attack” and said releasing it before Trump returns to the White House would harm the presidential transition.
Report withheld documents
The second part of the report details Smith's case, accusing Trump of illegally retaining sensitive national security documents after he left the White House in 2021, which also led to criminal charges against him.
Smith was appointed by Garland to investigate both cases in November 2022 – the same month that Trump announced his plans to contest the 2024 election.
The Justice Department has pledged not to make this part public until the end of legal proceedings against two Trump associates charged in the case, Walt Bulls and Carlos De Oliveira.
The charges against Trump himself were dropped in a ruling by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, which Smith's team planned to appeal before Trump won the November 5 election.
Cannon ordered plans to allow some senior members of Congress to privately review the document portion of the report to be put on hold for now.
Smith, who resigned last week and faced relentless criticism from Trump, also defended his investigation and the prosecutors who worked on it.
US President-elect Donald Trump will not have to serve prison time or pay fines, but when he takes office later this month, he will be the first US president with a criminal record after a judge granted him unconditional release in a hush money trial.
“Mr. Trump's claim that my decisions as prosecutor were influenced or directed by the Biden administration or other political actors is, in a word, laughable,” Smith wrote in a letter detailing his report.
Trump was convicted in a New York state case of 34 felonies related to a scheme to falsify business records in connection with secret cash payments to a porn actress, but a judge last week spared him a fine or prison time. The verdict still ensures that Trump will become the first president to take office with a felony conviction.