A report from the US Department of Justice concludes that the investigation was thwarted by delays and the re-election of Donald Trump.
A few days before Donald Trump is sworn in, the special prosecutor responsible for investigating the efforts made by the American president to overturn the 2020 election has let loose. He released his report on the case which concluded that if Donald Trump had not been re-elected, he would most likely have been convicted.
In a 137-page document, prosecutor Jack Smith’s team insists that Donald Trump’s repeated assertions regarding a “witch hunt” are false and that the case had no other purpose than to protect the rule of law itself.
“The common thread running through all of Mr. Trump’s criminal efforts was deception – knowingly false claims of election fraud – and the evidence shows that Mr. Trump used those lies as a weapon to defeat a function of the federal government that is at the basis of the democratic process of the United States”says the report.
The document focuses on the billionaire’s frantic but unsuccessful efforts to cling to power after losing the 2020 election, a move that included pressuring state officials to overturn the result or thwart the Electoral College process, filing lawsuits without factual basis in courts in multiple states, spreading false claims about non-existent fraud in the vote counting process, and to incite a crowd to gather at the United States Capitol to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence into refusing to certify the result.
This ploy resulted in a violent attack on Congresswhich led to the deaths of several demonstrators and police officers. According to numerous witnesses who were sworn in publicly, Donald Trump watched the riot on television and for several hours refused calls from his aides to end it via social media, even though it was clear that the situation was getting worse.
Any prosecution being excluded due to the electoral victory of the new president, despite the state of progress of the case, the document should constitute the last chronicle of the department of justice on a dark chapter of American history in which the peaceful transfer of power was disrupted.
As soon as the report was published, Donald Trump reacted this Tuesday by publishing a message on his platform Truth Socialclaiming that he was “totally innocent”calling Mr. Smith a “lame prosecutor who could not have his case tried before the election”and adding that “THE VOTERS HAVE SPOKE!”
Deadline exceeded
Donald Trump had been indicted in August 2023 for trying to overturn the election, but the case was delayed by appeals and ultimately reduced significantly by a Supreme Court with a conservative majority which held for the first time that former presidents enjoyed complete immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts.
Although Prosecutor Smith sought to save the indictment, the Supreme Court dismissed it entirely in November due to long-standing Justice Department policy that sitting presidents cannot be subject to federal prosecution.
“The Department’s view that the Constitution prohibits the indictment and prosecution of a president is categorical and does not depend on the seriousness of the crimes charged, the strength of the government’s case, or the merits of the prosecution, whether the Office fully supports”we can read in the report.
“Indeed, without the election of Mr. Trump and his imminent return to the presidency, the office believed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and maintain a conviction at trial.”
The Justice Department sent the report to Congress early Tuesday, after a judge rejected Mr. Trump’s attempt to block its release.
Another volume of the report focuses on Mr. Trump’s accumulation of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, actions that formed the basis of a separate indictment, but it will remain under wraps for now while that prosecutors continue proceedings against Mr. Trump’s co-defendants in this case.
What could have been
Although most of the details of Mr. Trump’s efforts to undo the election are already well documented, theThis report contains for the first time a detailed assessment of the investigation led by Jack Smith, as well as a rebuttal to claims by Mr. Trump and his allies that the investigation was politicized or that Mr. Smith worked in collaboration with the White House – an assessment he calls ” laughable.”
“Although we have not been able to bring the cases we were charged with to trial, I think that the fact that our team defended the rule of law account”he wrote in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, which was attached to the report. “I believe the example our team has set for others to fight for justice without worrying about personal costs is important.”
The special prosecutor also outlined the challenges his office faced in its investigation, including Mr. Trump’s repeated invocation of executive privilege to try to prevent witnesses from providing evidence. This tactic, which Donald Trump has used in other cases, failed to derail the case, but forced prosecutors into lengthy court battles before the case could proceed.
Another “significant challenge” was the “Mr. Trump’s ability and willingness to use his influence and audience on social media to targeting witnesses, courts and prosecutors“points out Mr. Smith, a campaign that led prosecutors to request a gag order to limit harassment.
“Mr. Trump’s use of intimidation and harassment during the investigation was not new, as his actions during the incriminated conspiracies show, Mr. Smith wrote, pointing out that this actually gave weight to his case when it came to the public element of the effort to overturn the outcome of the 2020 election.
“A fundamental element of Mr. Trump’s conduct that underlies the accusations in the election case was his habit of using social media – at the time, Twitter – to publicly attack and seek to influence federal officials and states, judges and election workers who refused to support false claims that the election was stolen or who otherwise opposed complicity in Mr. Trump’s plan.”he adds.
Several of Mr. Trump’s associates have faced consequences for their actions. His former lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who led unsuccessful efforts to file post-election lawsuits in swing states, is being sued to turn over personal property granted to two Georgia poll workers who were the subject of violent threats due to false allegations that he made in public about them.
Also for the first time, Jack Smith also explains the thought process behind his team’s prosecution decisions. He writes that his office decided not to charge Mr. Trump with incitement, in part for reasons of freedom of expression.
He explains that they also declined to charge Mr. Trump with insurrection because he was the sitting president at the time the affair took place and because it was unclear whether the team can go to trial for this offense, which he emphasizes has never been the subject of prosecution before in the United States.