Donald Trump would have been convicted of illegally trying to overturn the result of the 2020 U.S. election had he not become President again, according to Special Counsel Jack Smith‘s partially released report.
The evidence against Trump was “sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial,” Smith wrote. Trump has already hit back on his Truth Social platform to say the findings were “fake” and criticize the process.
“But for Mr Trump’s election [in 2024] and imminent return to the presidency, the office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial,” said the Department of Justice (DoJ) report, which went into further detail around the case. Addressing why the case was closed, the report noted that the U.S. Constitution forbids the prosecution of a sitting president.
In a letter accompanying the release sent to the attorney general, the BBC reported that Smith denied any suggestion the case was politically motivated: “The claim from Mr Trump that my decisions as a prosecutor were influenced or directed by the [President Joe] Biden administration or other political actors is, in a word, laughable,” said this letter.
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Smith’s report said the Jan 6 insurrection showed the former and soon-to-be-current POTUS had used “unprecedented efforts to unlawfully retain power.”
The report spotlighted a series of challenges faced by the investigators. It was sent to congress last night after a period of legal wrangling.
Trump was accused of pressuring officials to reverse the 2020 result, knowingly spreading lies about election fraud and for his part in the Jan 6 2021 insurrection. That insurrection saw a mob of Trump supporters attack the Capitol Building in Washington two months after Trump’s 2020 defeat to Joe Biden.
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