Jack Smith’s Final Report Justifies the Charges and Dropping the Case Against Trump –
Special prosecutor Jack Smith resigns: NAJ screen shot
By Glynn Wilson –
The complete failure of the American justice system to stop Donald Trump from hijacking the United States government with profound and corrupt lies and deceit does not bode well for the future of American democracy and places the entire planet in peril.
So reading the entire 137-page report from Special Counsel Jack Smith is the most depressing thing I’ve done in my 45 years as a news writer. Trump’s escape from prosecution makes me question all those hours and days I spent observing the courts, from those first days in Bay Minette 40 years ago as a cub reporter observing the behavior of lawyers and judges in the Baldwin County Courthouse to the federal courts in Washington, D.C. in recent years, where Trump should have been convicted and locked up rather than getting ready to be sworn is a president again.
It has long been clear that even in this country’s attempt to create a fair and impartial legal system, justice is not always blind, balanced and fair. The rich and powerful have long been able to manipulate the levers of justice in their favor. But this case is particularly heinous and will reverberate corruption through the system for whatever time we have left.
The report released early Tuesday makes clear that the evidence amassed against Trump would have been sufficient to convict him at trial, and no doubt a jury in Washington would have voted to convict him had he come to trial. It “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,” according to New York Times coverage.
Smith resigned as special counsel last week, but 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.”
Smith took 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.
Just as the Congressional Investigation did before, Smith blamed the attack on the Capitol on Trump’s words and actions, 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 Trump’s behalf as president and commander in chief.
The overwhelming evidence in the case and the fact that it was ignored by a majority of the people in voting in November calls into question whether we have a justice system and a communications system capable of sustaining a democracy. It appears that so many people have been fooled by the false narrative that they no longer value a democratic system and are willing to go along with a Christo-fascist dictatorship in the interest of fundamentally changing our country into a white, nationalist theocracy.
The report’s description of the violence even against the police makes it even more remarkable that Trump has repeatedly vowed to pardon those who headed his call to come to Washington and “fight like hell” to stop the peaceful transfer of power.
The report contained an extensive justification for pursuing the prosecution, which will serve as a historical record for generations to come, documenting in great detail Trump’s “unprecedented criminal effort to overturn the legitimate results of the election in order to retain power.”
Yet Trump’s announcement of his candidacy for president while two federal criminal investigations were ongoing “presented an unprecedented challenge for the Department of Justice and the courts,” Smith wrote. “Given the timing and circumstances of the special counsel’s appointment and the office’s work, it was unavoidable that the regular processes of the criminal law and the judicial system would run parallel to the election campaign.”
The report contained little information about 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 Smith filed in October, part of the fallout from the Supreme Court’s ruling that Trump enjoyed presumptive immunity for his official acts as president. It also let his co-conspirators totally off the hook.
“Because the office reached no final conclusions and did not seek indictments against anyone other than Mr. Trump — the head of the criminal conspiracies and their intended beneficiary — this report does not elaborate further on the investigation and preliminary assessment of uncharged individuals,” the report said.
The release of this single volume of the report contains nothing about the classified documents case brought in Florida because the Trump-appointed judge barred the Justice Department from immediately releasing that part of the report, even to Congress. Another clear indication of how Trump has corrupted the courts.
Key Sections of the Report
As alleged in the original and superseding indictments, according to the report, “substantial evidence demonstrates that Mr. Trump then engaged in an unprecedented criminal effort to overturn the legitimate results of the election in order to retain power. Although he did so primarily in his private capacity as a candidate, and with the assistance of multiple private co-conspirators, Mr. Trump also attempted to use the power and authority of the United States Government in furtherance of his scheme.”
“When it became clear that Mr. Trump had lost the election and that lawful means of challenging the election results had failed,” the report says, “he resorted to a series of criminal efforts to retain power. This included attempts to induce state officials to ignore true vote counts; to manufacture fraudulent slates of presidential electors in seven states that he had lost; to force Justice Department officials and his own Vice President, Michael R. Pence, to act in contravention of their oaths and to instead advance Mr. Trump’s personal interests; and, on January 6 , 2021, to direct an angry mob to the United States Capitol to obstruct the congressional certification of the presidential election and then leverage rioters’ violence to further delay it.
“In service of these efforts, Mr. Trump worked with other people to achieve a common plan: to overturn the election results and perpetuate himself in office. These individuals included Co-Conspirator 1 , a private attorney who was willing to spread knowingly false claims and pursue strategies that Mr. Trump’s Campaign attorneys would not; Co-Conspirator 2, a private attorney who devised and attempted to implement a strategy to leverage the Vice President’s ministerial role in the certification proceeding to obstruct the certification; Co-Conspirator 3 , a private attorney whose unfounded claims of election fraud Mr. Trump privately acknowledged were “crazy,” but which he embraced and publicly amplified nonetheless; Co-Conspirator 4, a Justice Department official who worked on civil matters and who, with Mr. Trump, attempted to use the Justice Department to open sham election crime investigations and influence state legislatures with knowingly false claims of election fraud; Co-Conspirator 5, a private attorney who assisted in devising and attempting to implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding; and Co-Conspirator 6, a private political consultant who helped implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding.”
“All of Mr. Trump’s criminal efforts was deceit,” the report goes on. “Knowingly false claims of election fraud.” And the evidence shows that Trump used these lies as a weapon to defeat a federal government function foundational to the United States’ democratic process. Trump’s false claims included dozens of specific claims regarding certain states, such as that large numbers of dead, non-resident, non-citizen, or otherwise ineligible voters had cast ballots, or that voting machines had changed votes for Trump to votes against him. “These claims were demonstrably and, in many cases, obviously false.”
The Office investigated whether Trump believed the claims he made. Evidence from a variety of sources established that Trump “knew that there was no outcome-determinative fraud in the 2020 election, that many of the specific claims he made were untrue, and that he had lost the election. He knew this because some of the highest-ranking officials in his own administration, including the Vice President, told him directly that there was no evidence to support his claims.’ Mr. Trump’s private advisors, both within and outside of his Campaign, told him the same.”
“Trump aimed his deceit at the United States’ process of collecting, counting, and certifying votes, which flows from the Constitution and a federal law enacted in 1887 called the Electoral Count Act (ECA),” the report goes on. “The Constitution provides that the United States President is selected through the votes of individuals called electors and that each state determines how to appoint its electors. Through state laws, all fifty states and the District of Columbia have chosen to select electors based on the popular vote. Therefore, after election day, pursuant to the ECA, each state formally determines or ‘ascertains’ its electors based on the popular vote; the ascertained electors meet on a day determined by the ECA and cast their votes based on their state’s popular vote; and the ascertained electors mail their electoral votes, along with a certification from the state executive that they are the state’s legitimate electors, to the United States Congress to be counted and certified in an official proceeding. The Constitution and ECA provide that on the sixth of January following election day, the Congress meets for that certification proceeding, which is presided over by the Vice President as President of the Senate; the legitimate electors’ votes are opened and counted; and the winner is certified.”
“Until Mr. Trump obstructed it, this democratic process had operated in a peaceful and orderly manner for more than 130 years,” the report concludes.
The special counsel’s office says it was also prepared to prove that Trump willfully caused his supporters to obstruct and attempt to obstruct the proceeding by summoning them to Washington, D.C., and then directing them to march to the Capitol to cause the Vice President and legislators to reject the legitimate certificates and instead rely on the fraudulent electoral certificates.
“Finally, the Government was prepared to prove Mr. Trump’s corrupt intent – under any definition – beyond a reasonable doubt. To act “corruptly” means (1) acting dishonestly, (2) intending the use of unlawful means, (3) violating a legal duty or causing or seeking to cause someone else to violate a legal duty, or (4) seeking an unlawful or improper benefit or advantage. Acting corruptly also means acting with consciousness of wrongdoing.
“Mr. Trump and co-conspirators used deceptive and dishonest means; he intended the use of independently criminal means to obstruct the congressional certification proceeding; he and co-conspirators plainly sought to cause state and federal officials to violate a legal duty; and Mr. Trump acted ‘with an intent to procure an unlawful benefit either for oneself or for some other person’.”
Section 241 in the law makes it unlawful for two or more persons to ” conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States.
“A violation of Section 241 requires proof of three elements: (1) Mr. Trump entered into a conspiracy, (2) to willfully injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate a person in the United States, (3) in the exercise or enjoyment of a right secured by the Constitution or federal law. Mr. Trump’s conduct meets each element.”
Insurrection Act
In a surprising development, the report contains a section on other potential charges the prosecutors considered bringing against Trump, including a charge of inciting an insurrection under the Insurrection Act, which provides that “[w]hoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.”
What follows is an extensive section on the potential litigation problems of charging Trump under that law, which has rarely been tested in the courts, although some courts had already declared Trump guilty of inciting an insurrection, including the Colorado Supreme Court. In Anderson v. Griswold, the Colorado Supreme Court found that Trump had engaged in an insurrection as that term is used in Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Federal courts in the District of Columbia have also used the term “insurrection” to describe the attack on the Capitol.
“The Office recognized why courts described the attack on the Capitol as an ‘insurrection,’ but it was also aware of the litigation risk that would be presented by employing this long-dormant statute.”
To date, more than 1,500 people have been criminally charged for their roles in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, the report acknowledges. “With that in mind, Mr. Trump’s relative culpability weighed heavily in favor of charging him, as the individual most responsible for what occurred at the Capitol on Jan. 6.”
The report also points out that at sentencing in Jan. 6 cases, many defendants expressed remorse and sought leniency by blaming Trump both for their presence at the Capitol and their underlying belief “that the [2020 presidential] election was fraudulent and that they must take action to stop the transition of the presidency.”
“I trusted the President and that was a big mistake,” one defendant is quoted as saying.
But because of the Department’s interpretation that the Constitution forbids the federal indictment and prosecution of a sitting President, prosecutors determined that the case must be dismissed without prejudice before Trump takes office on Jan. 20, and “therefore moved to dismiss the indictment on November 25, 2024. 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. 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.”
Reaction
Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee and a member of the Select House Committee that investigated Trump, issued a detailed statement in reaction to the report and the dismissed charges.
“The Special Counsel report sets forth comprehensive and irrefutable evidence of Trump’s unprecedented and still shocking criminal scheme to overturn the legitimate 2020 election results and retain power,” Raskin says.
“The report painstakingly documents how Trump and his co-conspirators engaged in a months-long conspiracy to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 presidential election, which Joe Biden won by more than seven million votes, 306-232 in the electoral college,” Raskin says. “The conspiracy encompassed numerous unlawful means, including by pressuring officials to fraudulently change the election results, wielding federal power to perpetuate false claims of electoral corruption, and ultimately, directing a violent mob to go to the U.S. Capitol to obstruct the congressional certification of the election and usurp the democratic will of the people and overturn the constitutional order,” Raskin says.
“Special Counsel Smith’s report collects and synthesizes all the relevant facts showing how Donald Trump attempted to overthrow the 2020 presidential election. As part of his authoritarian crusade to cling to power, he told his followers to ‘fight like hell’ and incited a bloody insurrection which wounded and severely injured nearly 140 police officers who were fighting valiantly to protect the Congress, the Vice President, and the peaceful transfer of power. Donald Trump watched this shameful attack unfold on TV from the safety of his Oval Office dining room and refused to call on the National Guard, the Secretary of the Army, D.C. Police or any other police or military leader to respond to the rampaging mob he unleashed against law enforcement and his own government. And now, rather than facing legal consequences for this illegal assault, Donald Trump is preparing to return to the White House and exact revenge against public officials and private citizens who dared to stand up to his autocratic crusade,” Raskin says.
“Trump’s offenses are compounded by his refusal to accept accountability and his unrelenting efforts to block the truth from coming out about his conduct—including by threatening and harassing the prosecutors and witnesses involved in DOJ’s investigation and subsequent litigation, and attempting to block the release of this very report at the eleventh hour,” he goes on.
“No amount of sinister revisionism by House Republicans can obscure or vaporize the plain reality described in the Special Counsel’s report—which validates and elaborates the findings of the January 6 Select Committee and the brave testimony of witnesses and police officers who fought tooth and nail, even when badly outnumbered by a vicious mob, to protect the Vice-President, Members of Congress and American democracy. Donald Trump engaged in a conspiracy to unlawfully seize and retain power, lied systematically to his followers and the American people, forged false vote certificates, pressured state and federal officials to make up votes and claims of fraud, and finally incited his supporters to engage in a bloody insurrection attack on the Congress and the Capitol,” he continues.
“It is in the public interest for the Department of Justice to expeditiously release the second volume of Special Counsel Smith’s report so the American people have as full an accounting as possible of Donald Trump’s lawless and criminal conduct.”
Conclusion
The fact that nothing will come from this legal investigation is a travesty of justice of epic proportions, and will undermine our ability to maintain a democratic system of government in the foreseeable future. And considering the anti-science positions of Trump and his entire cabinet, and his promise to upend the civil service now running our federal government, the world’s environment will also suffer further calamities and go unaddressed by this administration at least for the next four years. It may already be too late to take action to get the forces of climate change under control.
While the Biden administration was engaged in massive effort to fund all kinds of fixes to our energy and transpiration systems to deal with the crisis, all that work will no longer be continued under Trump and will most likely be undermined at every turn.
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