US president-elect Donald Trump. (Reuters: Marco Bello)
US special counsel Jack Smith found president-elect Donald Trump engaged in an unprecedented criminal effort to overturn his 2020 election defeat, according to a report released by the Department of Justice (DOJ).
The report details Mr Smith's decision to bring a four-count indictment against Trump, accusing him of plotting to obstruct the collection and certification of votes following 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 on January 20 makes that impossible.
The DOJ'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", the report said.
"But for Mr. Trump's election and imminent return to the Presidency, the (Special Counsel's) Office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial."
Mr Smith — who left the DOJ last week — dropped both cases against Trump after he won last year's election.
Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges. Neither case reached a trial.
Mr Smith's case faced legal hurdles even before Trump's election win, however. It was paused for months while Trump pressed his claim that he could not be prosecuted for official actions taken as president.
Trump was quick to respond to the report's release, calling Mr Smith "deranged" and a "lamebrain prosecutor who was unable to get his case tried before the election".
"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," the president-elect said in a post on his Truth Social platform.
Mr Smith, who has been the target of relentless criticism from Trump, defended his investigation and the prosecutors who worked on it.
"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," Mr Smith wrote in a letter detailing his report.
Trump and his two former co-defendants in the classified documents case had sought to block the release of the report, days before his inauguration.
Courts rebuffed their demands to prevent its publication altogether, with US District Judge Aileen Cannon ruling on Monday that the report could be released after a long court dispute. She had previously blocked the DOJ from releasing the full report.
A second section of the report details Smith's case accusing Trump of illegally retaining sensitive national security documents after leaving the White House in 2021.
The DOJ has committed not to make that portion public while legal proceedings continue against two Trump associates charged in the case.
Judge Cannon has also ordered the DOJ for now to halt plans to allow certain senior members of Congress to privately review the documents section of the report.
Much of the evidence cited in the report has been previously made public.
Prosecutors gave a detailed view of their case against Trump in previous court filings. A congressional panel in 2022 published its own 700-page account of Trump's actions following the 2020 election.
Both investigations concluded that Trump spread false claims of widespread voter fraud following the 2020 election and pressured state politicians not to certify the vote, and ultimately, also sought to use fraudulent groups of electors pledged to vote for Trump, in states actually won by Mr Biden, in a bid to stop Congress from certifying Mr Biden's win.
The effort culminated in the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol — when a mob of Trump supporters stormed Congress in a failed attempt to stop lawmakers from certifying the vote.
ABC/wires
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