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 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’s office conducted interviews with more than 250 individuals in connection with the investigation and federal grand jurors heard testimony from more than 55 witnesses as part of the probe.
Smith has been the subject of unending criticism by Trump, whose allies have suggested the special counsel should now face criminal charges, and Smith used the report to deliver a full-throated defense of his decision to bring charges.
“To all who know me well, the claim from Mr. Trump that my decisions as a prosecutor were influenced or directed by the Biden administration or other political actors is, in a word, laughable,” Smith wrote.
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, Smith wrote.
“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.
Trump criticized the report on his website Truth Social, complaining that it was released at 1 a.m. and repeating false claims about the House committee that investigated Jan. 6.
“Jack is a lamebrain prosecutor who was unable to get his case tried before the Election,” Trump wrote.
The report brings to an end a chapter in American history in which a former president was indicted on federal charges for the first time, only to go on and be re-elected and who, in a few days, will return to power. Trump fought to keep the report secret, but his last-minute requests to prohibit the release were refused.
Smith’s report said that Trump’s actions, resulting in the interruption of America’s record of peaceful transfers of power, were without historical comparison and that Trump’s “political and financial status” as well as “the prospect of his future election to the presidency” made the investigation more challenging.
Trump’s “ability and willingness to use his influence and following on social media to target witnesses, courts, and Department employees” was a “significant challenge” for the office, causing the special counsel to “engage in time-consuming litigation to protect witnesses from threats and harassment,” the report said.
Smith pointed to Trump’s continued praise of Jan. 6 rioters as further evidence that the president-elect had intended to incite the attack.
“He has called them ‘patriots’ and ‘hostages,’ reminisced about January 6 as a ‘beautiful day,’ and championed the ‘January 6 Choir,’ a group of January 6 defendants who, because of their dangerousness, are detained at the District of Columbia jail,” Smith wrote.
The report says that Trump spread voter fraud 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.”
Smith pointed to testimony that Trump privately admitted to losing, including telling an aide after watching Biden speak, “can you believe I lost to this f’ing guy?”