SPECIAL COUNSEL REPORT LAYS BLAME FOR JAN.6 AT TRUMP'S FEET (CLICK ON LINK BELOW TO READ ENTIRE REPORT)

In August 2023, the special counsel Jack Smith charged Donald J. Trump with three intersecting conspiracy counts accusing him of plotting to overturn his loss in the 2020 election. Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

By Alan Feuer and Charlie Savage

The New York Times. 

Jan. 14, 2025
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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  (click on link to read report) – 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.

The report amounted to an extraordinary rebuke of a president-elect, capping a momentous legal saga that saw the man now poised to regain the powers of the nation’s highest office charged with crimes that struck at the heart of American democracy. And although Mr. Smith resigned as special counsel late last week, his recounting of the case also served as a reminder of the vast array of evidence and detailed accounting of Mr. Trump’s actions that he had marshaled.

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.

In several lengthy footnotes, Mr. Smith explored the trauma experienced by Capitol Police officers who were attacked during the riot, including “shell-shock” and the inability to move. He quoted one officer who described the effort to keep rioters from getting to congressional staff members inside the Capitol; the officer said that for them, that could have meant “possible death. People are getting killed, maimed.”

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