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Donald Trump was facing “sufficient” evidence to have been convicted at trial for seeking to overturn the 2020 US presidential election, according to the special counsel who led the case against the president-elect.
Jack Smith was appointed by US attorney-general Merrick Garland in 2022 to oversee cases against Trump. He brought two sets of charges against the former president, one of which accused Trump of interfering with the result of the 2020 polls.
But Smith ultimately moved to dismiss both proceedings following Trump’s victory in the 2024 election based on a long-standing justice department policy that bars the prosecution of sitting presidents.
This view “is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the Government’s proof, or the merits of the prosecution, which the Office stands fully behind”, Smith wrote in a final report on the case released early on Tuesday.
“Indeed, but for Mr Trump’s election and imminent return to the Presidency, the [special counsel’s] Office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial,” Smith added.
The report comes as a blow to Trump, less than a week before he is set to be sworn in.
Trump, who has denied wrongdoing, in a post on his Truth Social platform called Smith a “lamebrain prosecutor who was unable to get his case tried before the Election, which I won in a landslide”.
The report brings to an end one of the two cases related to Smith’s investigation as special prosecutor. The other case relates to Trump’s mishandling of classified documents after the end of his first term as president.
Smith last week resigned from the justice department. The historic case unleashed a fierce legal battle with the president-elect in the run up to the 2024 polls.