Donald Trump would have been convicted of trying to overturn 2020 results if he had not been elected, special prosecutor's report says

The revelation of the report was eagerly awaited in the United States, a few days before the inauguration ceremony, on January 20, which will mark Donald Trump's return to the White House. According to a report from special prosecutor Jack Smith, released Tuesday, January 14, the president-elect would have been convicted for his attempt to reverse the result of the 2020 election if he had not been re-elected in November.

Donald Trump was prosecuted in the investigation into the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021 by a crowd of his Republican supporters to contest the election of Joe Biden for president. But his re-election in November changed the legal situation, putting an end to the prosecution against the Republican in this case, as well as in the separate one, about his management of top secret documents after his departure from the White House.

Jack Smith, who investigated the two federal proceedings against the Republican president-elect, sent his confidential report on these two cases to the Minister of Justice, Merrick Garland, on January 7, before resigning. In this report, he states that his team has “defended the rule of law” during his investigation into the assault on the Capitol. “The office [du procureur spécial] found that the evidence was sufficient to obtain and maintain a conviction at trial (…)if it had not been for the election of Mr. Trump and his imminent return to the presidency. »

“Lies” used “as a weapon”

“The throughline of all of Mr. Trump's criminal efforts was deception – knowingly false claims of election fraud – and the evidence shows that Mr. Trump used those lies as a weapon to defeat a function of the federal government that is at the basis of the democratic process of the United States »it is added.

The report once again calls attention to Mr. Trump's frantic but unsuccessful efforts to cling to power in 2020. With his election victory last November having ended the lawsuits, the document is expected to be the latest chronicle of the Department of Justice. justice on a dark chapter in American history and complements the indictments and reports already released.

Mr. Trump reacted early Tuesday in a message posted on his Truth Social network, saying he was “totally innocent” and criticizing this “lame prosecutor who could not have his case tried before the election”. “Jack Smith the Deranged was unable to successfully pursue the political opponent of his “boss,” Joe Biden the Corrupt. So he ends up writing yet another “report” based on information” that a group of “corrupt politicians and thugs illegally destroyed and deleted, because it showed how totally innocent I was,” he wrote.

In August 2023, a grand jury found that the charges were sufficient to justify the indictment of Donald Trump, due to his role in attempting to interrupt the peaceful transfer of power. Defeated by Joe Biden in the November 2020 election, Donald Trump organized a campaign of lies about imaginary fraud, then exerted pressure on senior officials at the Department of Justice as well as in several disputed states (Georgia, Arizona …).

He had finally, with advisers, tried to promote alternative lists of electors, trying in vain to convince the vice-president, Mike Pence, to block the certification of the results in Congress. The calls to mobilize his supporters on January 6, 2021, who ended up attacking the police around the Capitol and forcing entry to the building, were the final stage of this conspiracy.