SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
election interference
Trump Fumes as Final Jack Smith Report Details 'Series of Criminal Efforts to Retain Power'
"But for Mr. Trump's election and imminent return to the presidency, the office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial," the report states.
Jan 14, 2025
The special counsel who investigated and charged Donald Trump over his attempts to subvert the 2020 election said in a final report released by the U.S. Justice Department early Tuesday that the former president would have been convicted for "a series of criminal efforts to retain power" had he not won another White House term in November.
"But for Mr. Trump's election and imminent return to the presidency, the office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial," wrote Jack Smith, who resigned from the Justice Department late last week ahead of Inauguration Day.
Smith pointed to the Justice Department's view that "the Constitution prohibits the continued indictment and prosecution of a president," a position he said is "categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the government's proof, or the merits of the prosecution, which the office stands fully behind."
The report, which Trump's legal team sought to bury, is the first of two volumes that Smith's team produced following the completion of its investigations into the former president's unlawful election interference and hoarding of classified documents. Smith dropped the two cases shortly after Trump's victory in the 2024 election.
According to the Justice Department, Smith has urged that the volume on the classified documents probe not be released to the public while the case against Trump's former co-defendants is still pending.
"Trump worked with other people to achieve a common plan: to overturn the election results and perpetuate himself in office."
In the newly released report, Smith detailed how Trump and his allies tried to "induce state officials to ignore true vote counts," manufactured "fraudulent slates of presidential electors in seven states that he had lost," directed "an angry mob to the United States Capitol to obstruct the congressional certification of the presidential election," and leveraged "rioters' violence to further delay it."
"In service of these efforts, Mr. Trump worked with other people to achieve a common plan: to overturn the election results and perpetuate himself in office," the report added.
Trump responded furiously to the report's release, ranting on social media that "Deranged Jack Smith was unable to successfully prosecute the Political Opponent of his 'boss,' Crooked Joe Biden, so he ends up writing yet another 'Report' based on information that the Unselect Committee of Political Hacks and Thugs ILLEGALLY DESTROYED AND DELETED, because it showed how totally innocent I was, and how completely guilty Nancy Pelosi, and others, were."
In his introduction to the report, Smith rejected as "laughable" Trump's claim that the investigations were politically motivated or influenced in any way by the Biden administration.
"While we were not able to bring the cases we charged to trial, I believe the fact that our team stood up for the rule of law matters. I believe the example our team set for others to fight for justice without regard for the personal costs matters," Smith wrote. "The facts, as we uncovered them in our investigation and as set forth in my report, matter. Experienced prosecutors know that you cannot control outcomes, you can only do your job the right way for the right reasons. I conclude our work confident that we have done so, and that we have met fully our obligations to the department and to our country."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Trump-Appointed Judge Orders Biden DOJ to Conceal Jack Smith Report
"Delay is the name of the game here," said one legal analyst. "If they can just stop the clock until January 20th, then... the attorney general will be a Trump appointee and they can kill the whole thing."
Jan 07, 2025
Aileen Cannon, a Trump-appointed federal judge in Florida, ordered the Justice Department on Tuesday to temporarily withhold from the American public special counsel Jack Smith's final report on his investigations into the president-elect, despite questions about her authority to do so.
Cannon's order came in response to a Monday request by President-elect Donald Trump's longtime valet Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira, who are facing charges in a classified documents case brought by Smith. Trump was also charged in the classified documents probe, but Smith dropped the case against the Republican leader after he won the 2024 presidential election.
In their filing on Monday, Nauta and De Oliveira's attorneys called on Cannon to bar the release of Smith's final report, even though the classified documents case is currently before the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta—not Cannon's court. The Justice Department is appealing Cannon's decision last summer to dismiss the classified documents case as the agency pursues charges against Nauta and De Oliveira.
Cannon wrote in her order Tuesday that Attorney General Merrick Garland, Smith, and other Justice Department employees are enjoined from "releasing, sharing, or transmitting" Smith's final report or "any drafts of such report" outside the DOJ. The judge said her order would remain in effect until the 11th Circuit rules on Nauta and De Oliveira's motion to prohibit the release of Smith's report.
Barbara McQuade, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School, said in an appearance on MSNBC that she doesn't believe Cannon has "any jurisdiction" over decisions surrounding Smith's report.
"But delay is the name of the game here," she added. "If they can just stop the clock until January 20th, then... the attorney general will be a Trump appointee and they can kill the whole thing and say, 'There's no report to disclose.' So that's the goal here."
Speaking to reporters Tuesday just ahead of Cannon's order, Trump claimed he didn't "know" the Florida judge—despite appointing her—but praised her as "brilliant."
Trump on Judge Cannon who he appointed: I don't know the judge in Florida, but we had a brilliant judge in Florida.. her opinion was so brilliant that they dropped the appeal pic.twitter.com/rjzsNANHyu
— Acyn (@Acyn) January 7, 2025
Smith said in a filing earlier Tuesday that his office is still "working to finalize" the report on his investigations into Trump's hoarding of classified documents and efforts to subvert the 2020 presidential election. By law, special counsels are required to submit a final report to the attorney general, who has the authority to decide whether to make the findings available to the public.
Smith said in his filing that he would not transmit his report to Garland before 1:00 pm on Tuesday, and that the attorney general would not release the findings before the morning of January 10—if at all. It's unclear how Cannon's order will impact Smith's timeline.
Trump's lawyers have demanded that Garland withhold Smith's report entirely, claiming in a letter to the attorney general on Monday that making it public would "violate the Presidential Transition Act and the presidential immunity doctrine."
In their letter to Garland, Trump's attorneys—who have reviewed Smith's confidential report in recent days—revealed that the first volume of the document states that the president-elect "engaged in an unprecedented criminal effort" and was "the head of the criminal conspiracies" surrounding the 2020 election.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Garland Urged to 'Show Any Smattering of Spine' and Release Jack Smith Report on Trump
"This is his last chance to do something right," said one activist.
Jan 07, 2025
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland faced calls Monday to release special counsel Jack Smith's final report on his investigations into Donald Trump as quickly as possible after the president-elect's legal team demanded that the Justice Department withhold the findings from the public.
In an emailed letter to Garland—sent on the fourth anniversary of the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol that Trump incited—the president-elect's attorneys demanded that Smith "terminate all efforts toward the preparation and release of this report," claiming its disclosure would "violate the Presidential Transition Act and the presidential immunity doctrine."
"If Smith is not removed, then the handling of his report should be deferred to President Trump's incoming attorney general, consistent with the expressed will of the people," wrote Trump's lawyers, who were permitted to review the two-volume report in recent days.
One of the authors of the letter to Garland, Todd Blanche, is Trump's nominee to serve as deputy attorney general in the incoming administration.
The demand from Trump's lawyers intensified calls for Garland to make Smith's findings available to the public.
"Merrick Garland has exactly one more chance to show any smattering of spine—he has two weeks to release Jack Smith's report," wrote activist Jon Bauman, president of the Social Security Works PAC. "This is his last chance to do something right."
Smith was tasked with investigating Trump's unlawful hoarding of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate and his efforts to subvert the 2020 presidential election. The special counsel dropped both federal cases shortly after Trump won the 2024 election, arguing that "the Constitution requires that this case be dismissed before the defendant is inaugurated."
But Smith stressed that the decision was "not based on the merits or strength of the case against the defendant."
Under federal regulations, special counsels are required to submit reports on their findings to the attorney general, who can decide whether to publicize the findings.
In addition to Trump's pressure campaign against Garland, two of the president-elect's former co-defendants in the classified documents case are pushing Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon to bar the Justice Department from releasing Smith's report.
Politico noted that it's not clear whether Cannon has the authority to grant that request.
"After she dismissed the case—ruling that Smith's appointment as special counsel was unconstitutional—the Justice Department appealed to the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit Court of Appeals," the outlet observed. "That court, not Cannon, currently has control of the case."
Smith said in a filing on Tuesday that his office is "working to finalize a two-volume confidential report to the attorney general explaining the special counsel's prosecution decisions."
"The attorney general will decide whether any portion of the report should be released to the public," the new filing continues. "The attorney general has not yet determined how to handle the report volume pertaining to [the classified documents case]... but the department can commit that the attorney general will not release that volume to the public, if he does at all, before Friday, January 10, 2025 at 10:00 am."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular