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US Attorney General Merrick Garland has released Jack Smith’s final report into his investigation into Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. The outgoing Justice Department Special Counsel findings do not make for flattering reading for the president-elect.
Smith curtailed his probe into the 45th president’s alleged election interference plot in November after Trump beat Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 vote to secure a return to the White House. Justice Department protocol forbids it from investigating a sitting president, ending Smith’s hope of securing a conviction against Trump and ultimately prompting his resignation last Friday.
But the special counsel leaves office with a report that makes clear his feelings about the former and future president’s efforts to mislead the American public about his defeat to Joe Biden four years ago.
“When it became clear that Mr Trump had lost the election and that lawful means of challenging the election results had failed, he resorted to a series of criminal efforts to retain power”, Smith writes in the 174-page filing.
Those efforts included, he argues, “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”.
Here are the key findings from a report the president-elect moved quickly to attempt to discredit as “fake” on social media.
Voters saved Trump from conviction
Having laid out the evidence against the president-elect in exhaustive detail, much of which has been previously established, the special counsel states flatly that only Trump’s victory over Harris in November’s presidential vote could have saved him from being convicted for attempting to subvert the 2020 election.
“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 writes.
“Until Mr Trump obstructed it, this democratic process had operated in a peaceful and orderly manner for more than 130 years,” he adds elsewhere – alluding to Congress’s certification of the Electoral College results, a process established under the Electoral Count Act of 1887 – underlining the historical gravity of the actions he accuses Trump of engaging in.
Smith says it was his “duty” to investigate the former president’s conduct, adding he stands by his decision “fully” and that prosecutors “cannot control outcomes” and must simply commit to doing their jobs “the right way for the right reasons.”
The extent of Trump’s pressure campaign against Pence
The special counsel frequently cites Mike Pence’s own words from his memoir So Help Me God as he outlines the intensity of Trump’s pressure campaign against his own vice president. Trump sought to persuade him to weaponize his ceremonial role in certifying the election results in Congress, the event underway on Capitol Hill on January 6 2021 when the attempted insurrection broke out.
Smith alleges that, at one stage in the run-up to that occasion, Trump told his erstwhile running mate that “hundreds of thousands” of people would “hate his guts” and think him “stupid” if he did not comply with the plot to reject legitimate results from the states, also angrily rebuking Pence for being “too honest”.
The special counsel also focuses on Trump’s efforts to exert public pressure on his deputy on social media and at a rally in Georgia, which ultimately led to chants of “Hang Mike Pence!” breaking out among the rioters in Washington DC and the erection of a gallows for the purpose.
Trump and Pence have been estranged ever since parting ways with the conclusion of the former’s first term but unexpectedly shook hands at Jimmy Carter’s funeral in DC last week.
Smith details ‘crucial’ deception at heart of fraudulent electors plot
The special counsel describes the plan to “organize the people who would have served as Mr Trump’s electors, had he won the popular vote, in seven states that Mr Trump had lost . The Republican billionaire wanted supporters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin to sign and send to Washington false certifications claiming to be the legitimate electors.
He writes that the scheme “quickly transformed into a corrupt strategy to obstruct the certification proceeding and overturn the valid election results” and involved electors in the targeted states being sent instructions “on how best to mimic the manner in which the state required valid electors to gather and vote”.
Smith continues: “For the most part, the co-conspirators deceived Mr Trump’s elector nominees in the targeted states by falsely claiming that their electoral votes would be used only if ongoing litigation were resolved in Mr Trump’s favor.
“This deception was crucial to the conspiracy, as many who participated as fraudulent electors would not have done so had they known the true extent of the co-conspirators’ plans.
“Not all of Mr Trump’s elector nominees were persuaded, forcing the co-conspirators to recruit substitutes in some of the targeted states.”
Probe into co-conspirators continued after Trump charged
After Trump was originally indicted in 2023 on four counts, including conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstruction of an official proceeding, Smith’s team continued to investigate the former president’s co-conspirators with a view to further charges.
His office found evidence that one subject of its investigations, who is not named in the report, may have committed unrelated crimes and that investigation was passed on to a US attorney’s office.
Talks had been underway about issuing further indictments against those involved, Smith reveals, until the investigation into Trump had to be dropped.
“Because the office reached no final conclusions and did not seek indictments against anyone other than Mr Trump – the head of the criminal conspiracies and their intended beneficiary – this report does not elaborate further on the investigation and preliminary assessment of uncharged individuals,” he concludes.
Smith says he tried to avoid influencing 2024 election
The special counsel is at pains to point out that he and his team stuck closely to Justice Department guidelines about carrying out investigations into public officials during an election year, a rebuttal to Trump’s repeated claims that it was Smith’s work that amounted to the real “election interference”.
“Throughout its work, the office was focused entirely on its mandate to uphold the law, and nothing more,” Smith’s report states. “The career prosecutors in the office conducted its investigation and prosecution in a manner that complied fully with the department’s policies regarding election year sensitivities.
“Collectively, prosecutors in the office had many years of experience providing training, advice, and guidance to prosecutors and law enforcement agents throughout the department on how to comply with the department’s election-related policies.”
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