Attorney General Merrick Garland has submitted part of former special counsel Jack Smith’s final report to Congress on his investigation into President-elect Donald Trump, after a court order blocking its release expired at midnight Tuesday, according to a source familiar with the matter. with the case.
In his report, Smith wrote that his office began prosecuting Trump because it had sufficient evidence against him that “[b]In light of 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.”
The report was sent to Congress and made public shortly after days of legal wrangling over whether it – or any part of it – should be made public. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon on Monday denied a request by Walt Nauta, a Trump aide, and Carlos de Oliveira, a former real estate manager at Mar-a-Lago, to prevent part one of Smith’s final report from becoming public.
That part concerns Trump’s alleged attempts to undermine the transition of power after the 2020 election. Part two addresses allegations that the president-elect unlawfully withheld classified documents and obstructed the Justice Department’s investigation after the end of his first term in 2021.
In a letter to Garland accompanying the report, Smith defended his decision to file charges against the newly elected president and rejected Trump’s accusations that his actions were influenced by the highest levels of the Justice Department.
“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, later adding in the report his office had “no interest in influencing the presidential election.”
Smith used the first part of his report to defend his work and research findings, claiming, “The common thread in all of Mr. Trump’s criminal efforts was deception — knowingly false claims about elections.”
Much of the 137-page book recounts information already made public through lawsuits in the course of the now-dismissed case against Trump, filed in Washington, D.C., and includes footage of the violence that took place at the U.S. Capitol on January 1 . August 6, 2021, when a mob of Trump supporters broke into the building in an attempt to stop Congress from reaffirming Mr. Biden’s victory.
Prosecutors alleged that the rioters who came to the Capitol were “motivated and directed by Trump,” a claim Trump has denied. The former special counsel wrote that his office was “prepared” to prove that “Trump deliberately caused his supporters to obstruct and attempt to impede the proceedings by summoning them to Washington DC.”
Yet, Smith wrote to his office, “he did not develop direct evidence — such as an explicit confession or communication with co-conspirators — of Mr. Trump’s subjective intent to instigate the full extent of the violence that occurred on January 6.” ”
Now, four years since the January 6 attackMore than 1,500 people have been charged for their conduct in the Capitol. The former special counsel wrote that “with that in mind, Mr. Trump’s relative culpability weighed heavily in favor of the indictment against him as the person most responsible for what happened at the Capitol on January 6.”
Smith revealed that through voluntary interviews with more than 250 people and grand jury testimony from 55 people, his office was able to gather evidence pointing to Trump’s alleged criminality, including allegations that he pressured then-Vice President Mike Pence tried to postpone the elections. vote certification on January 6, 2021, and he supported the organization of a false list of voters.
The former special counsel also detailed how Trump tried to pressure the Justice Department at the time to investigate the false claims of fraud. According to the report, Trump at one point told his acting attorney general to “just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican members of Congress.”
A federal grand jury has returned an indictment charging Trump with four counts. He pleaded not guilty to all charges. But Smith wrote that his office considered — and ultimately decided — not to file other charges. One possible charge was the Insurrection Act, a Civil War law that bars those who incited an insurrection against the U.S. from holding federal office.
But Smith said that while the courts have described the Jan. 6 attack as an “insurrection,” his office was “aware of the risk of litigation that would result from applying this long-dormant statute.”
Trump was accused of participating in crimes with at least six unnamed co-conspirators, and Smith wrote that his office had established shared criminal culpability with the president-elect. Smith said that after Trump was indicted in August 2023, his office continued to investigate whether any of the other alleged participants would be charged. He said he referred for further investigation to evidence from a U.S. attorney’s office that one person may have committed unrelated crimes.
Smith’s office made a “preliminary determination” that admissible evidence could justify pursuing charges against some of Trump’s co-conspirators and had begun exploring how to proceed. But because his team did not reach a conclusion or seek further charges, Smith wrote that the report “should not be read to allege that any particular person other than Mr. Trump committed a crime, nor should it be read to allege to exonerate a certain person. .”
Ahead of the report’s release, Trump’s lawyers asked Attorney General Merrick Garland to remove Smith from his post and either refuse to release the special counsel’s report or turn the case over to Trump’s new administration , according to the letter released last week.
The letter, addressed to Garland and a top Justice Department official, alleged that the special counsel did not have the legal authority to submit a final report summarizing his investigation into Trump, and urged the attorney general general urged to ‘end this arming of Trump’. the justice system and move forward constructively.”
The correspondence was written in part by attorneys Todd Blanche and Emile Bove, who were picked by Trump to serve as deputy attorney general and chief deputy attorney general in his new administration.
Trump has labeled Smith’s investigation as politically motivated and denied any wrongdoing in the case.
The legal battle over Smith’s report on Trump
The Justice Department’s release of the second part of Smith’s report marked the culmination of a rapidly evolving legal battle that unfolded over the past week and unfolded days before Trump was to be sworn in for a second term. Had the battle continued until the president-elect’s return to the White House on January 20, it is unlikely that the special counsel’s report would have been publicly released.
Cannon, who was to oversee the document case, issued a preliminary injunction last week temporarily prevented the Justice Department from making the report public, prompting a federal appeals court refused to stop the release. The subdistrict court judge’s order expired at noon on Tuesday.
Garland has said he will not publicly release the second part of the report because proceedings against Nauta and de Oliveira are still ongoing.
Smith resigned his position appointed special counsel last Friday, and Justice Department prosecutors have taken over pending cases arising from his investigations. Smith’s two investigations led to separate prosecutions of Trump, but these ended due to his victory in the November presidential election.
As required of special counsels, Smith prepared and submitted a final report to the attorney general last week. Garland has pledged to make public all special counsel reports prepared while he was attorney general, and has so far kept that promise, including after the investigation into President Biden’s handling secret documents. He published the special prosecutor’s final report on the investigation into Hunter Biden tax evasion and gun possession cases Monday evening.
Last week, Garland informed Congress that Smith had completed his investigation and submitted the two-part report. It is unclear whether the second part, which concerns the secret documents case, will ever be released to the American people.
Smith’s tenure as special counsel began in November 2022, when Garland tapped him to take over the ongoing investigation into Trump. The president-elect repeatedly promised to fire the special counsel when he returned to the White House.
Federal grand juries have returned two indictments against the president-elect, marking the first time a former president has been charged with federal crimes. In the 2020 election case, Washington, D.C., featured Trump facing four chargesincluding conspiracy to defraud the US and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding. In the document case it was the elected president charged with 40 countsincluding willful withholding of national defense information and conspiracy to obstruct justice.
Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges and accused Smith of launching a politically charged investigation against him because he was Mr. Biden’s political rival.
The 2020 election case ended up before the Supreme Court with Trump’s claim that he was entitled to presidential immunity protecting him from prosecution since the conduct that gave rise to the allegations occurred during his first term.
In July, the Supreme Court made a groundbreaking statement finding that former presidents cannot be sued for official acts, but were not immune from prosecution for unofficial acts. The decision led to further proceedings in the federal district court that oversaw the case.
But the charges were dismissed in November, after Trump’s election to a second term, because longstanding Justice Department policy prohibits the prosecution of a sitting president.