WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump “inspired his supporters to commit acts of 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 report defending his investigation made public early Tuesday.
The 170-page report summarized Smith’s investigation into President-elect Donald Trump’s efforts to maintain power after he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden, which culminated in the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Smith — who has been the subject of unending criticisms by Trump, whose allies have suggested the special counsel should now face criminal charges — used the report to deliver a full-throated defense of his decision to charge Trump and opined that — if it wasn’t for Trump’s election in November that prevented the prosecution from moving forward — the case would have ended in the president-elect’s conviction.
“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,” Smith’s report stated.
The report says that Trump spread claims that were “demonstrably and, in many cases, obviously false” and that Smith’s office determined that “Trump knew that there was no outcome-determinative fraud in the 2020 election, that many of the specific claims that he made were untrue, and that he had lost the election.”
The report brings to an end a chapter in American history that saw, for the first time, a former president indicted on federal charges only to go on and be re-elected and, in a few days, returned to power. Trump fought to keep the report secret, but last-minute requests to prohibit the release were refused.
Smith, who resigned Friday, also wrote a second volume of his report focused on the separate charges brought 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.
Trump, who was separately convicted of 34 felonies in connection with hush money payments to an adult film star during his 2016 campaign, 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 of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights — related to Jan. 6 and the efforts leading up to it. Under long-standing Justice Department policy that prevents the sitting president from being tried, the charges were dropped upon Trump’s victory in November.
While Trump has never publicly conceded that he knew he lost the 2020 election but continued to insist otherwise, a federal grand jury said the false claims he spread were “unsupported, objectively unreasonable, and ever-changing.”
The delay strategy Trump’s legal team used ultimately allowed him to avoid trial before American voters elected him again last year and resulted in a Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity that will grant him wider latitude in office.
The report was released as Trump says he is preparing to pardon an untold number of Jan. 6 defendants. More than 1,580 defendants have been charged and more than 1,270 have been convicted on charges ranging from unlawful parading to seditious conspiracy. More than 700 defendants have either already completed their sentences or were never sentenced to any period of incarceration in the first place. Asked whether he could pardon rioters who committed violence against police officers, Trump did not rule it out.
Among those seeking pardons is former Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio, who was found guilty of seditious conspiracy in 2023 and sentenced to 22 years in federal prison, the longest sentence given to any Jan. 6 defendant. Vice President-elect JD Vance said over the weekend that those who committed violence should “obviously” not be pardoned. The mother of one Jan. 6 rioter who was shot and killed during the attack said she received a call last week from Trump, who told Jan. 6 defendants to “keep their chins up.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
