Jack Smith Report Released; Trump Fires Back QuicklySpecial counsel Jack Smith claims he had evidence "sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction" of President-elect Donald Trump for election interference in his report released early Tuesday, prompting a furious response from Trump.
Trump fired back on social media minutes after the report was released at 1 a.m. ET.
"Deranged Jack Smith was unable to successfully prosecute the Political Opponent of his 'boss,' Crooked Joe Biden, so he ends up writing yet another 'Report' based on information that the Unselect Committee of Political Hacks and Thugs ILLEGALLY DESTROYED AND DELETED, because it showed how totally innocent I was, and how completely guilty Nancy Pelosi, and others, were," Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.
"Jack is a lamebrain prosecutor who was unable to get his case tried before the Election, which I won in a landslide. THE VOTERS HAVE SPOKEN!!!"
"To show you how desperate Deranged Jack Smith is, he released his Fake findings at 1:00 A.M. in the morning," Trump added in another post. "Did he say that the Unselect Committee illegally destroyed and deleted all of the evidence."
Smith, claiming "admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial" against Trump, said his team "stood up for the rule of law" as it investigated President-elect Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, writing in a much-anticipated report released Tuesday that he stands fully behind his decision to bring criminal charges he believes would have resulted in a conviction had voters not returned Trump to the White House.
"The throughline of all of Mr. Trump's criminal efforts was deceit — knowingly false claims of election fraud — and the evidence shows that Mr. Trump used these lies as a weapon to defeat a federal government function foundational to the United States' democratic process," the report states.
The report, arriving just days before Trump is to return to office Jan. 20, focuses fresh attention on his frantic but failed effort to cling to power in 2020.
With the prosecution foreclosed thanks to Trump's election victory, the document is expected to be the final Justice Department chronicle of a dark chapter in American history that threatened to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power, a bedrock of democracy for centuries, and complements already released indictments and reports.
Trump was indicted in August 2023 on charges of working to overturn the election, but the case was delayed by appeals and ultimately significantly narrowed by a conservative-majority Supreme Court that held for the first time that former presidents enjoy sweeping immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts.