US president-elect Donald Trump would have faced conviction for his alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election results had he not been re-elected four years later, according to a special counsel report.
The US Justice Department has published Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report detailing Mr. Trump’s efforts to disrupt the 2020 election outcome, which marks the final act of a prosecutor whose landmark criminal cases were impeded by Mr. Trump’s election victory in November.
The department maintains that its “view that the Constitution prohibits the ongoing indictment and prosecution of a President is categorical and does not depend on the severity of the charges, the strength of the Government’s evidence, or the merits of the prosecution, which the Office entirely supports,” according to the report.
“Indeed, if it were not for Mr. Trump’s election and imminent return to the Presidency, the (Special Counsel’s) Office believed that the admissible evidence was adequate for obtaining and sustaining a conviction at trial.”
The report also mentions that the counsel considered bringing charges against Mr. Trump for incitement of insurrection but ultimately decided against it.
A portion of the report outlines Mr. Smith’s case alleging that Mr. Trump unlawfully retained sensitive national security documents after departing the White House in 2021.
The Justice Department has pledged not to make that section public while legal proceedings remain ongoing against two associates of Trump charged in the matter.
Mr. Smith, who left the Justice Department last week, dropped both cases against Mr. Trump after he won last year’s election, citing a long-established Justice Department policy that prevents the prosecution of a sitting president. Neither case proceeded to trial.
Mr. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Jack Smith dismissed both cases against Donald Trump after he secured victory in the 2024 election.
In response to the report’s release, Mr. Trump labeled Mr. Smith as “deranged,” adding that he “failed to successfully prosecute the Political Opponent of his ‘boss’.”
“To illustrate how desperate Deranged Jack Smith is, he released his Fake findings at 1:00 A.M.,” Mr. Trump further remarked in another post.
Previously, the US president-elect characterized the cases as politically motivated maneuvers intended to undermine his campaign and political movement.
Mr. Trump and his two former co-defendants in the classified documents case attempted to prevent the report’s release just days before he is scheduled to return to office on January 20. Courts rejected their petitions to stop its publication completely.
US District Judge Aileen Cannon, who oversaw the documents case, has instructed the Justice Department to pause its plans to permit certain senior members of Congress to privately review the document section of the report for now.
Read Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report
Prosecutors previously provided an extensive overview of their case against Mr. Trump in court filings. In 2022, a congressional panel released its own 700-page account detailing Mr. Trump’s conduct following the 2020 election.
Both investigations concluded that Mr. Trump propagated false assertions of widespread voter fraud after the 2020 election, pressured state officials not to certify the results, and ultimately sought to use fraudulent elector groups sworn to vote for Mr. Trump in states that Joe Biden had actually won, attempting to obstruct Congress from certifying Mr. Biden’s victory.
This initiative climaxed in the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol, where a mob of Trump supporters stormed Congress in a failed effort to halt the certification of the vote.
Mr. Smith’s case encountered legal challenges even before Mr. Trump’s election victory.
It was on hold for several months while Mr. Trump asserted that he could not be prosecuted for actions taken during his presidency.
The US Supreme Court’s conservative majority largely supported him, granting former presidents considerable immunity from criminal prosecution.
