“Special Counsel Report Says Trump Would Have Been Convicted in Election Case”

NYT:

Jack Smith, the special counsel who indicted President-elect Donald J. Trump on charges of illegally seeking to cling to power after losing the 2020 election, said in a final report released early Tuesday that the evidence would have been sufficient to convict Mr. Trump in a trial, had his 2024 election victory not made it impossible for the prosecution to continue.

“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 the prosecution, which the office stands fully behind,” Mr. Smith wrote.

He continued: “Indeed, but for Mr. Trump’s election and imminent return to the presidency, the office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial.”

The Justice Department delivered the 137-page volume — representing half of Mr. Smith’s overall final report, with the volume about Mr. Trump’s other federal case, accusing him of mishandling classified documents, still confidential — to Congress just after midnight on Tuesday….

In his report, Mr. Smith took Mr. Trump to task not only for his efforts to reverse the results of a free and fair election, but also for consistently encouraging “violence against his perceived opponents” throughout the chaotic weeks between Election Day and Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, injuring more than 140 police officers.

Mr. Smith laid the attack on the Capitol squarely at Mr. Trump’s feet, quoting from the evidence in several criminal cases of people charged with taking part in the riot who made clear that they believed they were acting on Mr. Trump’s behalf….

The report contained little information about Mr. Trump’s actions that had not already been made public through his indictment, filed in Federal District Court in Washington in August 2023, or in a lengthy evidentiary memo that Mr. Smith filed in October, part of the fallout from the Supreme Court’s ruling that Mr. Trump enjoyed presumptive immunity for his official acts as president.

While there had been some speculation that Mr. Smith’s report would provide new details about several unindicted co-conspirators described in the indictment — like Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official, and Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer — the report turned out to say little new about them.

Without naming any particular people, Mr. Smith wrote briefly that his team “had made a preliminary determination that the admissible evidence could justify seeking charges against certain co-conspirators” and had started to evaluate whether any such new case should be joined with Mr. Trump’s or brought separately.

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