Trump would have been convicted over attempt to overturn 2020 election, special counsel report says

Donald Trump's "criminal efforts to retain power" after the 2020 election has been condemned in a report by special counsel Jack Smith. Credit: AP

Donald Trump would have been convicted for attempting to overturn the 2020 election if he had not been re-elected in November last year, a report by special counsel Jack Smith has said.

Smith concluded his office “assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial”.

However, after the president-elect's recent election success, Smith requested the case against Trump be dismissed, citing longstanding department guidance that a sitting president cannot be prosecuted.

The report, which was publicly released by Attorney General Merrick Garland, also condemned Trump's "criminal efforts to retain power" after the 2020 election.

Trump criticised the report on Truth Social, labelling its findings as "fake".

The more than 130-page report, which was submitted to Congress and released early Tuesday after a court hold blocking its release expired at midnight, details how Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election.

Donald Trump's "criminal efforts to retain power" after the 2020 election has been condemned in a report by special counsel Jack Smith. Credit: AP

Smith’s team states in no uncertain terms that they believed Trump criminally attempted to subvert the will of the people and overturn the election results.

“As set forth in the original and superseding indictments, when it became clear that Mr Trump had lost the election and that lawful means of challenging the election results had failed, he resorted to a series of criminal efforts to retain power,” the report states.

The transmission of Smith’s January 6 findings came after the president-elect and his allies were unable to stop the department from releasing it.

The attorney general has decided not to publicly release the second volume of the report related to the classified documents investigation after the special counsel recommended against its publication.

Volume one of Smith’s report marks the special counsel’s final official word on his investigation into January 6, 2021, and the actions by Trump and his associates before then to interfere with the peaceful transfer of power.

Rioters, loyal to President Donald Trump, stormed the Capitol in Washington in 2021. Credit: AP

The report recites Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election, including his “pressure on state officials”, the “fraudulent electors plan”, his “pressure on the Vice President” Mike Pence, and a section on how Trump’s supporters attacked the US Capitol on January 6.

It essentially mirrors the landmark federal election subversion indictment that Smith brought against Trump in 2023, retooled in 2024 after the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling, and ultimately withdrew after Trump’s victory in the November election.

“Until Mr Trump obstructed it, this democratic process had operated in a peaceful and orderly manner for more than 130 years,” Smith wrote, referring to Congress’ certification of the Electoral College results, under the Electoral Count Act of 1887.

When it came to his duty as special counsel and the work of investigating and prosecuting Trump, Smith wrote that his “office had one north star, to follow the facts and law wherever they led. Nothing more and nothing less.”

Of the failed prosecution of Trump, Smith said that prosecutors “cannot control outcomes” and can only do their jobs “the right way for the right reasons.”

The final decision to prosecute Trump, he said, was his alone.

“It is a decision I stand behind fully,” Smith wrote. “To have done otherwise on the facts developed during our work would have been to shirk my duties as a prosecutor and a public servant.”

Trump criticised the special counsel’s report as “fake findings” in overnight posts on his Truth Social network.

“Jack is a lamebrain prosecutor who was unable to get his case tried before the Election, which I won in a landslide."

“THE VOTERS HAVE SPOKEN!!!," he said.


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