President-elect Donald Trump would have been convicted for “criminal efforts to retain power” following the 2020 United States presidential election had he not won the 2024 race, prosecutors have said.
A report, published by Attorney General Merrick Garland on Tuesday, includes accusations made by former Special Counsel Jack Smith that the president-elect plotted to obstruct the collection and certification of votes following his 2020 defeat to Joe Biden.
The published document concludes that the evidence would have been enough to convict Trump at trial, were it not for his re-election in November.
“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 said.
Over the course of its 137 pages, the report also outlined challenges to Smith’s investigation, including resistance from the social media platform Twitter, now known as X, to comply with a search warrant.
It also cited Trump’s alleged intimidation of would-be witnesses as a difficulty.
“A significant challenge that the Office faced after Mr. Trump’s indictment was his ability and willingness to use his influence and following on social media to target witnesses, courts, and Department employees, which required the Office to engage in time-consuming litigation to protect witnesses from threats and harassment,” the report said.
Footnotes also included evidence from officers present at the US Capitol during the riot on January 6, 2021, when Trump supporters attempted to stop the certification of the 2020 election results, based on Trump’s false claims of fraud.
One unnamed officer is quoted as describing the rioters as “trying to beat” up law enforcement with “ferocity”, prompting him to fear “possible death” for the people inside the Capitol: “What are they going to do to somebody else that’s in here, that’s maybe a staff or a congressman or somebody with the press?”
Trump was indicted in August 2023 on charges of working to overturn the election. The incoming president has pled not guilty and denied the allegations.
However, the case was delayed by appeals and ultimately significantly narrowed by the conservative-majority Supreme Court, which decided that former presidents enjoy sweeping immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts.
In response to the report, Trump, who will return to the White House on January 20, called Smith a “lamebrain prosecutor who was unable to get his case tried before the election”.
The incoming president, who lambasted the special counsel regularly during the investigation, called Smith “a disgrace to himself, his family and his country”.
Classified documents case
A second section of the report details another case in which Smith accuses Trump of illegally retaining sensitive national security documents after leaving the White House in 2021.
The Department of Justice has committed not to make that portion public while legal proceedings continue against two Trump associates charged in the case.
Smith dropped both cases after Trump defeated Democrat Kamala Harris in last year’s election, citing a longstanding Justice Department policy against prosecuting a sitting president. Neither case reached trial.
Tuesday’s report gave Smith and his team of federal prosecutors a chance to emphasise that only department policy forced the cases to come to a close, despite the strength of the evidence.
“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,” the report concludes in its final lines.
“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.”
Trump repeatedly called Smith “deranged”, asserting the cases were politically motivated and an effort to damage his campaign and political movement.
Trump had sought to block the release of the report, but the courts rebuffed his demand.
Smith himself resigned from the Justice Department on Friday, in anticipation of Trump taking control of the department as president.
US District Judge Aileen Cannon, who presided over the documents case, has ordered the Justice Department to halt plans for now to allow certain senior members of Congress to privately review the unpublished section of Smith’s report.
