Trump would have been convicted if he had not been elected US president, says Justice Department
Image source, Reuters
- Author, Mike Wendling and James FitzGerald
- Author’s title, BBCNews
US President-elect Donald Trump would have been convicted of illegally trying to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election, which he lost, had he not been successfully re-elected in 2024, the man who led US government investigations has claimed.
The evidence against Trump was “sufficient to obtain and maintain a conviction at trial,” special counsel Jack Smith wrote in a partially released report.
Trump responded by saying that Smith was “deranged” and that his findings were “false.”
The president-elect was accused of pressuring officials to overturn the 2020 election result, deliberately spreading lies about voter fraud, and trying to exploit the riot at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. Trump denied the allegations.
Trump, who was president at the time of the alleged crimes, spent four years out of office but was successfully re-elected to the White House in November. He will return to the presidency on January 20.
After his success in the 2024 vote, the various legal issues he had been wrestling with have largely evaporated. The election interference case has now been dismissed.
Smith says in the report that he “fully supports” the merits of bringing the charge and defends the strength of the case.
The special prosecutor went on to say that It was only the fact that the US Constitution prohibits the prosecution of a sitting president that ended the case..
“But for Mr. Trump’s election (in 2024) and his imminent return to the presidency, the office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and maintain a conviction at trial.”
Some of the material in Smith’s report was already known thanks to a public presentation in October, which detailed Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn his defeat.
But the report, which was submitted by the Department of Justice (DoJ) to Congress, provides more details about why Smith pursued the case and ultimately closed it.
• Justifies the case against Trump by accusing him of “unprecedented efforts to illegally retain power” by “threats and promotion of violence against their supposed opponents“.
• Trump’s “criminal efforts” included claims of election fraud that he knew were false, he adds.
• The report details the “significant challenges” that researchers faced, including the Trump’s use of social media to attack witnessescourts and employees of the Department of Justice.
• Denying that the case was politically motivated, Smith says: “Mr. Trump’s claim that my decisions as a prosecutor were influenced or directed by the (President Joe) Biden administration or other political actors is, in a word, ridiculous.” .
• Smith further reflects in an accompanying letter: “Although we were unable to prosecute the cases we charged, I believe the fact that our team upheld the rule of law is important.”
The 137-page document was sent to Congress after midnight Tuesday, following a period of legal back-and-forth that culminated with a judge clearing the way for the release of the first part of Smith’s report.
The judge, Aileen Cannon, also ordered a hearing later this week to decide whether to release the second part of the report, which focuses on separate allegations that Trump illegally stored classified government documents in his Florida home.
In a post on his Truth Social website, Trump maintained his innocencemocking Smith by writing that the prosecutor “could not get his case tried before the election, which I won in a landslide.”
Trump added: “THE VOTERS HAVE SPOKEN!!!”
Image source, Getty Images
Smith was appointed in 2022 to oversee the US government’s investigations into Trump. The Justice Department selects special prosecutors in cases where there is a potential conflict of interest.
In the case about electoral interference, Trump was accused of conspiring to overturn the result of the 2020 elections, which he lost to Joe Biden.
Both this case and the classified documents case resulted in criminal charges against Trump, who pleaded not guilty and tried to present the prosecutions as politically motivated.
But Smith closed the cases after Trump’s election in November, in accordance with Justice Department regulations that prohibit the prosecution of a sitting president.
The report explains: “The department’s view that the (U.S.) Constitution prohibits further impeachment and prosecution of a president is categorical and does not turn on the seriousness of the crimes with which he is accused, the strength of the government’s evidence or the merits of the accusation, something the office fully supports.”
He adds that prosecutors found themselves at a crossroads: “The (2024) election results raised for the first time the question of legal procedure when a private citizen who has already been charged is elected president.”
Tuesday’s release comes after a period of legal back-and-forth, during which Judge Cannon temporarily suspended release of Smith’s full report over fears it could affect proceedings against two Trump associates charged alongside him in the case of classified documents.
Walt Nauta, Trump’s personal assistant, and Carlos De Oliveira, manager of his Mar-a-Lago property, are accused of helping Trump conceal the documents.
Unlike Trump’s case, his are still pending and his lawyers argued that the report’s release could influence a future jury and trial.
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