US special counsel Jack Smith has concluded that Donald Trump engaged in an "unprecedented criminal effort" to hold on to power after losing the 2020 election, but was prevented from taking his case to court by the president-elect's victory in the November election, according to a report released Tuesday.
The report details Smith's decision to bring a four-count indictment against Trump, accusing him of conspiring to thwart the collection and certification of votes after his 2020 defeat by Democratic President Joe Biden.
He concludes that the evidence would have been enough to convict Trump in court, but his imminent return to the presidency, which is set for January 20, made that impossible.
Smith, who has faced relentless criticism from Trump, also defended his investigation and the prosecutors who worked on it.
"Mr. Trump's claim that my decisions as attorney general were influenced or directed by the Biden administration or other political actors is, in a word, ridiculous," Smith wrote in a letter detailing his report.
After its publication, Trump, in a post on his Truth Social page, called Smith "an embarrassing prosecutor who was unable to get his case to trial before the election".
Trump's lawyers, in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland released by the Justice Department, called the memo a "politically motivated attack" and said its release before Trump's return to the White House would damage the presidential transition.
Much of the evidence in the report has been published previously.
But it includes some new details, such as that prosecutors were considering charging Trump with inciting the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol under a U.S. law known as the Sedition Act.
Prosecutors ultimately concluded that such a charge posed a legal risk and that there was insufficient evidence that Trump intended "full-scale" violence during the riot, a failed attempt by a crowd of his supporters to prevent Congress from certifying the 2020 election.
The indictment accused Trump of conspiring to obstruct the certification of the election, to defraud the United States of accurate election results, and to disenfranchise American voters.
Smith's office determined that charges against some co-conspirators accused of helping Trump carry out the plan may have been warranted, but prosecutors have not reached any definitive conclusions, according to the report.
Several of Trump's former lawyers have previously been named as co-conspirators in the indictment.
The second part of the report details Smith's case accusing Trump of illegally keeping sensitive national security documents after he leaves the White House in 2021.
The Justice Department has pledged not to release that portion while the trial against two Trump associates charged in the case continues.
Smith, who quit the Justice Department last week, dropped both cases against Trump after his election victory last year, citing a longstanding Justice Department policy against prosecuting a sitting president. Neither case went to trial.
Trump has admitted to all the allegations. Trump, who has regularly attacked Smith as "deranged", has portrayed the cases as politically motivated attempts to damage his campaign and political movement.
Trump and his two former co-defendants in the classified documents case tried to block the release of the report days before Trump is due to return to office on January 20. The courts rejected their requests to prevent its release entirely.
CMG/ gnews - RoZ
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