US Attorney Jack Smith Defends Criminal Case Against Trump By Reuters

By Andrew Goudsward and Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith concluded that Donald Trump engaged in an “unprecedented criminal effort” to retain power after losing the 2020 election, but was frustrated to bring the case in process since the victory of the election of the elected president in November. , according to a report published Tuesday.

The report details Smith’s decision to file a four-count indictment against Trump, accusing him of conspiring to obstruct the collection and certification of votes after his 2020 defeat by Democratic President Joe Biden.

It concludes that the evidence would have been enough to convict Trump at trial, but his imminent return to the presidency, set for January 20, made this 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 a 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. .

After the release, Trump, in a post on his Truth Social site, called Smith a “lamebrain prosecutor who failed to make his case proven before the election.”

Trump’s lawyers, in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland released by the Justice Department, called the report a “politically motivated attack” and said the release before Trump’s return to the White House damage the presidential transition.

Much of the evidence cited in the report has been previously published.

But it includes some new details, such as that prosecutors have considered accusing Trump of inciting the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol under a US law known as the Insurrection Act .

Prosecutors ultimately concluded that such a charge presented legal risks and there was insufficient evidence that Trump thought about the “full purpose” of the violence during the riot, a failed attempt by a crowd of his supporters to prevent Congress to certify the 2020 elections.

The indictment accused Trump of conspiring to obstruct election certification, defraud the United States of accurate election results and deprive American voters of their voting rights.

Smith’s office determined that charges could be warranted against some co-conspirators accused of helping Trump carry out the plan, but the report said prosecutors had not reached final conclusions.

Several of Trump’s former lawyers were previously identified as co-conspirators referred to in the indictment.

A second section 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 make that part public while legal proceedings continue against two Trump associates accused in the case.

Smith, who left the Justice Department last week, dropped both cases against Trump after he won last year’s election, citing a longstanding Justice Department policy against prosecuting a president. in charge None have reached a trial.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges. Regularly attacking Smith as “deranged,” Trump 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 are trying 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 publication altogether.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who presided over the documents case, ordered the Justice Department for now to halt plans to allow some senior members of Congress to privately review the section of report documents.

Prosecutors have detailed their case against Trump in previous court filings. A congressional panel in 2022 released its own 700-page account of Trump’s actions after the 2020 election.

Both investigations concluded 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 sought to use fraud groups of voters committed to voting for Trump, in states actually won by Biden. in an attempt to prevent Congress from certifying Biden’s victory.

The effort culminated in the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol, when a crowd of Trump supporters stormed Congress in a failed attempt to prevent lawmakers from certifying the vote.

Smith’s case faced legal hurdles even before Trump’s election victory. It has been on hiatus for months as Trump pressed his claim that he could not be prosecuted for official actions taken as president.

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority sided with him, granting former presidents broad immunity from criminal prosecution.