HomePoliticsJack Smith writes a sharp defense of the January 6 investigation, says...

Jack Smith writes a sharp defense of the January 6 investigation, says the jury would have convicted Trump

WASHINGTON – President-elect Donald Trump “inspired his supporters to commit physical violence” on Jan. 6 and knowingly spread an objectively false narrative about election fraud in the 2020 election, special counsel Jack Smith said in a declassified defense report of his research. early Tuesday.

The 170-page report summarized Smith’s investigation into Trump’s efforts to retain power after losing the 2020 election to Joe Biden, which culminated in the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Smith’s office conducted interviews with more than 250 individuals in connection with the investigation and federal grand jurors heard testimony from more than 55 witnesses as part of the investigation.

Smith — who has been the subject of endless criticism from Trump, whose allies have suggested the special counsel should now face criminal charges — used the report to vigorously defend his decision to file charges.

“To anyone who knows me well, Mr. Trump’s claim that my decisions as prosecutor were influenced or directed by the Biden administration or other political actors is, in a word, laughable,” Smith wrote.

He believed that if his election in November had not prevented the prosecution from proceeding, the case would have ended in the conviction of the newly elected president.

“Indeed, but due to Mr. Trump’s election and impending return to the presidency, the Bureau determined that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial,” Smith’s report said.

Trump criticized the report on his website Truth Social, pointing out that it was released at 1 a.m. and repeating false claims about the House committee investigating on January 6.

“Jack is a cowardly prosecutor who failed to get his case to trial before the election,” Trump wrote.

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The report ends a chapter in American history in which, for the first time, a former president was indicted on federal charges, then reelected and returned to power within days. Trump fought to keep the report secret, but last-minute requests to ban its release were rejected.

Smith’s report said that Trump’s actions resulting in the interruption of America’s record of peaceful transfers of power were without historical comparison and that Trump’s “political and financial status” and “the prospect of his future election as president” made the investigation more challenging.

Trump’s “ability and willingness to use his influence and social media following to attack witnesses, courts, and Department employees” was a “significant challenge” for the office, forcing the special counsel to “file time-consuming lawsuits to protect witnesses from threats and intimidation,” the report said.

He pointed to Trump’s continued praise for the Jan. 6 rioters as further evidence that the newly elected president intended to provoke the attack.

“He has called them ‘patriots’ and ‘hostages’, remembered January 6 as a ‘beautiful day’ and defended the ‘January 6 Choir’, a group of January 6 defendants who are being held in the Prison in District of Columbia,” Smith wrote.

The report says Trump spread voter fraud claims that were “demonstrably and in many cases patently false” and that Smith’s office determined that “Trump knew there was no outcome-determining fraud in the 2020 election, that many of the specific claims made he made them untrue, and that he had lost the election.”

Smith pointed to testimony that Trump privately admitted he lost, including telling an aide after watching Biden speak, “can you believe I lost to this damn man?”

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Smith, who resigned Friday, also wrote a second part of his report focused on the separate charges against Trump over his handling of classified documents, but that part of the report was not released because charges against two of Trump’s co-defendants are still pending . .

Smith’s report said prosecutors were able to show that Trump had decided before the election that he would charge fraud, whether it occurred or not, and that after his defeat he “sticked to that plan — repeating false claims that he knew they weren’t true. “

Trump, who was separately convicted of 34 crimes during his 2016 campaign in connection with hush money payments to an adult film star, had denied wrongdoing in connection with the effort to overturn the 2020 election. A federal grand jury indicted Trump on four felony charges — conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction and attempted obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights — related to Jan. 6 and the efforts that preceded it. It. Under the Justice Department’s long-standing policy that prevents the sitting president from being tried, the charges were dropped after Trump’s victory in November.

Smith wrote in his report that his office also considered charging Trump under the Insurrection Act, but ultimately concluded that would be difficult to prove given the complicated legal definitions of “insurrection” and whether there was was of sedition.

Smith also provided few details about the six unindicted co-conspirators included in the original indictment. He did not mention them by name and said the report should not be seen as an apology for them. However, he did reveal that while continuing to investigate co-conspirators, the special counsel referred to a U.S. attorney’s office that “an investigative subject may have committed unrelated crimes.”

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Although Trump never publicly admitted that he knew he had lost the 2020 election but continued to insist he did not, a federal grand jury said the false claims he spread were “unsupported, objectively unreasonable and ever-evolving.” were.

The delaying strategy used by Trump’s legal team ultimately allowed him to avoid a trial before American voters re-elected him last year, and resulted in a Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity that would give him more leeway in office give.

The report was released as Trump said he was preparing to pardon an untold number of January 6 suspects. More than 1,580 suspects have been charged and more than 1,270 suspects have been convicted on charges ranging from unlawful parading to seditious conspiracy. More than 700 defendants have already served their sentences or were never sentenced to any prison term at all. When asked whether he could pardon rioters who committed violence against police officers, Trump did not rule it out.

Among those seeking clemency is former Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio, who was found guilty of seditious conspiracy in 2023 and sentenced to 22 years in prison, the longest sentence imposed on a Jan. 6 defendant. Vice President-elect JD Vance said last weekend that those who committed violence should “obviously” not be pardoned. The mother of a Jan. 6 rioter shot during the attack said she received a call last week from Trump, who told the Jan. 6 defendants to “keep their chins up.”

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

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