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Donald Trump faced “sufficient” evidence to have been convicted at trial for seeking to overturn the result of the 2020 US presidential election, according to the special counsel who led the case against the president-elect.
Jack Smith, who was appointed to oversee federal cases against Trump, brought two sets of charges against the former president, one of which accused him of interfering with the result of the 2020 election won by Joe Biden.
Smith ultimately moved to dismiss both proceedings following Trump’s victory in the 2024 election, based on a long-standing justice department policy that bars the prosecution of sitting presidents.
The view that sitting presidents cannot face prosecution “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”, Smith wrote in a final report on the case released early on Tuesday.
“Indeed, but for Mr Trump’s election and imminent return to the Presidency, the [special counsel’s] Office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial,” Smith added.
The report comes as a blow to Trump less than a week before he is set to be sworn into office on January 20.
Following the release of the 137-page report, Trump, who has denied wrongdoing, branded Smith a “lamebrain prosecutor who was unable to get his case tried before the Election, which I won in a landslide”.
The report brings to a close one of the two historic cases that Smith spearheaded as special prosecutor, which unleashed a fierce legal battle in the run-up to November’s presidential election and made Trump the first former US president to face federal criminal charges.
The other indictment related to Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents after the end of his first term as president.
In the report, Smith, who resigned from the justice department last week, stressed that Trump’s prosecution was critical to addressing “his resort . . . to threats and encouragement of violence against his perceived opponents”.
The indictment accused the president-elect of fomenting a mob that attacked the US Capitol on January 6 2021. Trump’s “words inspired his supporters to commit acts of physical violence”, Smith said.
The prosecutor cited Trump’s online posts following the 2020 election, which targeted election workers as well as former vice-president Mike Pence, whom Trump pressed to overturn the electoral result, to no avail.
Trump’s “retributive targeting” of Pence on January 6 — while aware of the unrest at the Capitol — led to rioters singling out the vice-president “for their ire and chanting . . . ‘Hang Mike Pence!’” the special counsel said.
Smith also criticised Trump for wielding his online presence to affect legal proceedings.
The president-elect’s “ability and willingness to use his influence and following on social media to target witnesses, courts, and Department employees” was a “significant challenge” and required Smith’s office “to engage in time-consuming litigation to protect witnesses from threats and harassment”, the special counsel said.
Smith argued that the continuation of the elections case could have helped clarify several aspects of a Supreme Court ruling that last year granted former presidents immunity from criminal prosecution for actions taken while in the White House.
The document released on Tuesday comprised half of Smith’s final findings. US federal judge Aileen Cannon stopped the DoJ from sharing Smith’s report on the classified documents case on the basis that its release would influence proceedings against a Trump aide and property manager.
Cannon, a Trump appointee who has already dismissed the documents case against the president-elect, has scheduled a hearing on Friday on the DoJ’s request to release the report’s second volume to the leaders of specific congressional committees.
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