Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Jack Smith, the special prosecutor who indicted President-elect Donald J. Trump on charges that he sought to hang on to power after he lost the 2020 election, said in a final report released early Tuesday that he believes there is enough evidence to with Mr. Trump condemned. on trial if his success in the 2024 elections did not preclude the continuation of criminal prosecution.
“The Department’s position that the Constitution prohibits the continued impeachment and prosecution of the President is categorical and does not address the seriousness of the crimes charged, the strength of the government’s evidence, or the merits of the prosecution, which the Office fully supports,” Mr. Smith wrote.
He continued, “Indeed, but for Mr. Trump’s election and imminent return to the presidency, the office has determined that admissible evidence is sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial.”
The Justice Department has turned over to Congress a 137-page tome — half of Mr. Smith, with the volume on the classified documents case still classified — just after midnight Tuesday morning.
The report, obtained by The New York Times, was a stunning rebuke of the president-elect, capping off a landmark legal saga that has seen the man now poised to restore the powers of the nation’s highest office accused of crimes that struck at the heart of American democracy. And although Mr. Smith resigned as special prosecutor late last week, his retelling of the case also served as a reminder of the vast array of evidence and detailed account of Mr. Trump that he organized.
The partial release came just a day after a Florida judge overseeing another federal case of Mr. Trump – the one who accused him of mishandling classified documents – issued a ruling allowing the public release of some of the material. But the judge, Aileen M. Cannon, who was personally appointed by Mr. Trump also barred the Justice Department from immediately releasing — even to Congress — the second volume of the report concerning the documents case.
For more than a week, Mr. Trump’s lawyers — who were shown a draft of Mr. Smith’s report before it was released — denounced it as little more than “an attempted political coup whose sole purpose is to disrupt the presidential transition.” At least one Trump ally, former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark , came forward to complain that he too could be implicated in the report as an uncharged accomplice in the case of election meddling.
In August 2023, Mr. Smith accused Mr. Trump in federal district court in Washington on three interlocking conspiracy counts accusing him of conspiring to reverse his 2020 election loss. Mr. Smith also filed a separate indictment in Florida, charging Mr. Trump for illegally possessing classified documents after he left office and conspiring with two co-defendants to obstruct the government’s repeated efforts to recover them.
But after Mr. Trump won the 2024 election, Mr. Smith dropped the cases because of a Justice Department policy barring the prosecution of sitting presidents. Under a special department order, he submitted a final report on both cases – one volume on each – to Attorney General Merrick B. Garland.
Last week, the Ministry of Justice said that Mr. Garland plans to delay the release of the book on the classified documents case until all legal proceedings related to two co-defendants, Mr. Trump.
Attorneys for the co-defendants, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, fought the release by getting a preliminary injunction last week from Judge Cannon, who dismissed the classified documents case last summer.
In her order Monday, Judge Cannon told the defense and prosecution to appear before her Friday in Federal District Court in Fort Pierce, Fla., to discuss the department’s plan to release the book of classified documents to Congress.
This is a developing story. Check again for updates.
