Donald Trump likely would’ve been convicted for his effort to overturn the will of the voters in 2020—if only the voting public hadn’t reelected him this past November.
That’s the topline conclusion of the 137-page report the now former special counsel Jack Smith released just after midnight Tuesday, formally concluding his election subversion case against the incoming president—who has maintained not only that he is a victim of political persecution but that he has been “exonerated.” On the contrary, Smith wrote, “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 prosecution, which the office stands fully behind.”
“But for Mr. Trump’s election and imminent return to the Presidency,” Smith continued, “the Office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial.”
In an accompanying letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, Smith—who resigned last week—sharply rebuked the incoming president for his “unprecedented efforts to unlawfully retain power after losing the 2020 election” and for his relentless attacks on the legal system. “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.
Trump shot back in a late-night social media post, describing Smith as a “lamebrain prosecutor” who was “unable to successfully prosecute the Political Opponent of his boss,” Joe Biden: “THE VOTERS HAVE SPOKEN!!!” Trump wrote.
The report—which was released after Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, allowed it to be made public—does not necessarily provide new revelations about Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The breadth of those efforts have already been detailed extensively by the House January 6 committee and Smith’s indictment—and in many instances were conducted by the former president in full view of the public. But his report does serve as a defense of his “impartial and independent” investigation—“I believe the fact that our team stood up for the rule of law matters,” he wrote to Garland—and as a reminder of the antidemocratic actions taken by the man who will, in six days time, re-assume the most powerful office in the country: “The evidence shows that Mr. Trump used these lies as a weapon to defeat a federal government function foundational to the United States’ democratic process,” the report reads. “Until Mr. Trump obstructed it, this democratic process had operated in a peaceful and orderly manner for more than 130 years.”
A second Smith volume, detailing his classified-documents case against Trump, has yet to be made public, pending a hearing Cannon scheduled for later this week. Trump has fought the release of Smith’s “hit job” reports, just as he fought to avoid being sentenced in his hush-money conviction: “I did nothing wrong,” he insisted at that hearing last week. “I was treated very, very unfairly.” But neither the reports nor his sentencing will mean much tangibly: He will not face any consequences for his conviction, and his federal prosecutions died with his November victory. He got away with everything—and he’ll be sitting in the Oval Office this time next week, even more emboldened than before.
