Special Counsel Jack Smith said in his final report on the investigation into President-elect Trump released Tuesday morning that his decisions were free from political interference and that his case would likely result in a conviction if allowed to proceed.
Smith made the claims in a letter he sent to Attorney General Merrick Garland and in a release detailing his long-awaited final report on election interference.
In a letter to Garland, Smith broke her silence on Trump’s attacks, accusing him of spearheading politically motivated prosecutions.
“The final decision to prosecute Mr. Trump was mine. This is a decision I fully support,” Smith wrote. He added that neither Garland nor anyone else at the DOJ pushed him to indict Trump.
“To everyone who knows me well, President Trump’s claim that the decisions I made as a prosecutor were influenced or directed by the Biden administration or other political actors is, in a word, ridiculous.”
The report’s release follows a swift legal battle that began as President Trump and his co-defendants in the Mar-a-Lago case sought to block both volumes of the Smith report from being shared with the public.
Ultimately, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon cleared the way for a book about January 6 to be published.
The release does not include a second book Smith wrote about prosecuting Trump for his handling of classified documents. Garland said she had no plans to make that part public given the pending case against Trump’s former co-defendants.
This report provides a glimpse into the inner thoughts of Mr. Smith, who only spoke publicly about this case on the day he was appointed as a special prosecutor.
Smith, who resigned Friday, detailed his decision to ask the court to dismiss the charges against Trump after Trump won re-election, saying he believed he would have won a conviction against the president-elect in a case where the stakes were high. I wrote:
“While true, given the election of President Trump and his impending return to the presidency, the office has assessed that the admissible evidence is sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial,” Smith wrote.
The bulk of the book released Tuesday (174 pages) covers Smith’s lengthy investigation into Trump’s efforts to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power.
By Smith’s own admission, the report contains much of the information disclosed in previous court filings. Trump’s unindicted co-conspirators in this case are easily identifiable but unnamed.
“All of Mr. Trump’s criminal actions were deception, false claims of election fraud. Evidence shows that Mr. Trump has used these lies as a weapon to dismantle federal government functions that are foundational to the American democratic process. “Smith wrote.
“Until Mr. Trump interfered, this democratic process had operated peacefully and orderly for over 130 years.”
The special counsel described prosecuting Trump during a presidential campaign as an “unprecedented challenge,” detailing the former president’s efforts to win strong loyalty from potential witnesses and attack prosecutors.
“The office had no interest in influencing the presidential election and fully complied with the letter and spirit of the department’s policy regarding election year sensitivity,” Smith wrote.
The release of the report comes hours after the Justice Department released it. Special Prosecutor David Weiss Announces Final Report It details the indictment against the president’s son, Hunter Biden.
