Special counsel Jack Smith wrote that his team stands “fully behind” prosecuting President-elect Donald Trump in his final report released early Tuesday morning, claiming Trump would have been convicted if he had not won the election.
The DOJ released volume one of Smith’s report covering the 2020 election investigation but held back volume two in light of pending litigation against Trump’s former co-defendants in the classified documents case.
“The Department’s view that the Constitution prohibits the continued indictment and prosecution of a President 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,” Smith concluded. “Indeed, 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.”
Smith wrote that nobody in the DOJ ever sought to influence his decision making, including about whether to bring charges.
“And to all who know me well, the claim from Mr. Trump 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.
Cannon enabled the DOJ to move forward with releasing the report when she denied a request by Trump’s co-defendants to hold it back Monday night. Trump motioned to intervene, though Cannon denied his effort.
“As this Court previously held, Jack Smith—who has now resigned from DOJ—was never validly appointed, and his office has no valid appropriation to expend taxpayer funds on the Report,” Trump’s attorneys wrote in a late-night filing.
Smith resigned from his position last week. Both of the federal cases against Trump were dismissed after he won the 2024 election.
In an early morning post on Truth Social, Trump called Smith a “lamebrain prosecutor who was unable to get his case tried before the Election, which I won in a landslide.”
“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,” he wrote.
Smith explained in the report that he did not charge Trump with insurrection due to the “the litigation risk that would be presented by employing this long-dormant statute.
While there was evidence Trump’s Jan. 6 speech “incited violence,” there was not direct evidence of his “subjective intent to cause the full scope of the violence that occurred on January 6,” Smith wrote.
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