Special counsel Jack Smith, speaking at his office in Washington, made a statement to reporters on the 37-count federal grand jury indictment against former U.S. President Donald Trump, accusing him of unauthorized retention of classified documents and collusion. Attempt to pervert the course of justice.
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters
The U.S. Department of Justice released special counsel Jack Smith’s report on Tuesday Donald Trump’s The attempt to overturn the 2020 election was a last-ditch effort by a prosecutor whose historic criminal case was thwarted by Trump’s November election victory.
The report is expected to detail Smith’s decision to bring four charges against Trump, accusing the Republican president-elect of conspiring to hinder the collection and certification of ballots after his 2020 loss to Democratic President Joe Biden.
The second part of the report details Smith’s case alleging that Trump illegally withheld sensitive national security documents after leaving the White House in 2021. Legal proceedings against Pu’s associates continue.
Smith, who left the Justice Department last week, dropped both cases against Trump after Trump won the election last year, citing the Justice Department’s long-standing policy against prosecuting sitting presidents. Neither man has gone to trial.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges. Trump has frequently attacked Smith as “insane” and described the cases as politically motivated attempts to undermine his campaign and political movement.
Trump and two of his former co-defendants in the classified documents case sought to block the report’s release days before he was due to return to office on January 20. Require.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who is presiding over the documents case, has ordered the Justice Department to temporarily halt plans to allow some senior members of Congress to privately review portions of the report’s documents.
It’s unclear how much new information will be included in the public portion of the report.
Prosecutors detailed their case against Trump in previous court filings. In 2022, a congressional panel released a 700-page report describing Trump’s actions after the 2020 election.
Two investigations concluded that Trump spread false claims about widespread voter fraud after the 2020 election, pressured state lawmakers not to certify votes and ultimately tried to exploit them in states where Biden actually won A fraudulent group of electors who pledged to vote for Trump in an attempt to win.
That effort culminated in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed Congress in a failed attempt to prevent lawmakers from approving the vote.
Smith’s case faced legal hurdles even before Trump’s victory. The proceedings were paused for months as Trump insisted he could not be prosecuted for official actions he took as president.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority largely sided with him, granting the former president broad immunity from criminal prosecution.
