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“U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith concluded that Donald Trump engaged in an ‘unprecedented criminal effort’ to hold on to power after losing the 2020 election, but was thwarted in bringing the case to trial by the president-elect's November election victory, according to a report published on Tuesday. The report details Smith's decision to bring a four-count indictment against Trump, accusing him of plotting to obstruct the collection and certification of votes following his 2020 defeat by Democratic President Joe Biden…
“A second section of the report details Smith’s case accusing Trump of illegally retaining sensitive national security documents after leaving the White House in 2021. The Justice Department has committed not to make that portion public while legal proceedings continue against two Trump associates charged in the case. Smith, who left the Justice Department last week, dropped both cases against Trump after he won last year’s election, citing a longstanding Justice Department policy against prosecuting a sitting president.” Reuters
Here’s our prior coverage of Jack Smith and the Supreme Court’s immunity decision. The Flip Side
The left praises Smith for documenting Trump’s wrongdoing.
“[Smith’s report] delineates Trump’s broader effort to retain power, an effort that culminated in the riot. That effort ‘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’…
“Smith also establishes that Trump’s efforts to subvert the election results were not consistent with past efforts to challenge the election results. None of the examples of past challenges offered by Trump’s attorneys, though, involved attempts ‘to use fraud and deceit to obstruct or defeat the governmental function that would result in the certification of the lawful winner of a presidential election.’ Trump’s push was exceptional.”
Philip Bump, Washington Post
“Smith’s team interviewed more than 250 people, obtained grand jury testimony from more than 55 witnesses… In the sprawling 137-page report, Smith unspools Trump’s efforts to block the peaceful transfer of power, from pressuring state and federal officials to nullify the election outcome to inciting a mob to ransack the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021… The report amounts to a remarkable rebuke of someone soon to assume the powers of the presidency…
“The case faced a series of unique challenges that come with not only investigating a former President but the inexorable force of Trump himself. Smith outlined legal tussles over executive privilege, the Supreme Court’s July ruling on presidential immunity, and Trump’s scare tactics…
“‘Mr. Trump used his considerable social media presence to make extrajudicial comments—sometimes of a threatening nature—about the case, and the Office was forced to pursue litigation to preserve the integrity of the proceeding and prevent witness intimidation.’”
Eric Cortellessa, Time
“Smith [also] seems to make a point to offer a subtle but pretty unmistakable rebuke of the Supreme Court and its role in sparing Trump a possible conviction… He notes that the Justice Department has previously investigated potential crimes by former presidents using official acts, ‘and none of those investigations had regarded former Presidents as immune from criminal liability for their official acts. The [special prosecutor's] Office proceeded from the same premise.’…
“Smith notes that one of those presidents was Richard M. Nixon, who wasn’t charged but was named as an unindicted co-conspirator. He says Nixon was pardoned by Gerald Ford ‘on both Presidents’ understanding that President Nixon was exposed to criminal liability.’ He also notes that Trump’s own lawyer at his post-Jan. 6 impeachment trial in the Senate argued that Trump shouldn’t be convicted by the Senate because a former president ‘is like any other citizen and can be tried in a court of law.’”
Aaron Blake, Washington Post
The right is critical of Smith, arguing that he was motivated by political considerations.
The right is critical of Smith, arguing that he was motivated by political considerations.
“The federal law allows for challenges [to election results] in Congress, which Democrats previously utilized without claims of insurrections or attacks on democracy. J6 Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., voted to challenge the certification of the 2004 results of President George W. Bush’s reelection; committee member Jamie Raskin, D-Md., sought to challenge Trump’s certification in 2016. Both did so under the very law that Trump’s congressional supporters used in 2020.”
Jonathan Turley, Fox News
“One cannot read the Trump opinion [regarding presidential immunity] — as written, not as reimagined by Smith — without concluding that the justices believe hauling a president into the criminal-justice system over his exercise (even abuse) of presidential power is a very bad idea that courts should want no part of and that prosecutors should thus avoid…
“Smith’s report reads as if the Trump decision either never happened or doesn’t say what it says. In fact, the report includes — as what Smith depicts as perhaps the worst abuse of presidential power — Trump’s attempt to use his control over the Justice Department to further the ‘stop the steal’ scheme. In point of fact, Smith had to drop this scheme from the indictment because the Court ruled that presidents have absolute immunity regarding their direction of the Justice Department. So why does Smith include it here? Because this is a political exercise, not a legal one.”
Andrew C. McCarthy, National Review
“The report did not have a lot of new information in it… but it did contain Smith’s assessment that he could have convicted Trump had Trump not won the presidency and is thus no longer subject to federal prosecution. What else could Smith say? That he had spent all that time and money, and stirred up the country so much, on a case he thought he would lose? Of course Smith would express confidence. He had no other option. Now that he has quit, he leaves muttering, ‘I coulda won, I coulda won.’…
“The single guiding fact of his prosecution — that he was working to indict, try, convict, and jail Trump before the 2024 election — was something he could never, ever admit. Justice Department guidelines unambiguously forbid such political moves: ‘Federal prosecutors and agents may never select the timing of any action, including investigative steps, criminal charges, or statements, for the purpose of affecting any election, or for the purpose of giving an advantage or disadvantage to any candidate or political party.’…
“That is exactly what Smith was doing… Smith indicted Trump on Aug. 1, 2023, and by the end of the year, the prosecutor was racing to get the former president into a courtroom… ‘If this were any other defendant than Donald Trump, the rush to trial — which cannot possibly give the Trump legal team adequate time to prepare its defense — would be deemed wildly unfair.’… [The country knew what Smith] was trying to accomplish, and a winning margin of the voters put an end to it.”
Byron York, Washington Examiner
