DOJ releases Jack Smith's Report on Trump's Criminal Attempt to Overthrow Democracy, Install Himself as Dictator
Selected excerpts from the first 30 pages...
Just past midnight, eastern time, the Department of Justice released the report by Special Counsel Jack Smith…
REPORT ON EFFORTS TO INTERFERE WITH THE LAWFUL TRANSFER OF POWER FOLLOWING THE 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OR THE CERTIFICATION OF THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE VOTE HELD ON JANUARY 6, 2021
Special Counsel Jack Smith
Submitted Pursuant to 28 C.F.R. § 600.8(c)
Washington, D.C.
READ THE REPORT »»» HERE.
Smith’s report begins with an acknowledgement of the remarkable fact that, for the first time in U.S. history, a dude was able to avoid going to jail by getting elected president.
This nearly unfathomable feat was enabled by yet another perfect storm of Unhinged and Unserious Recklessness by just about everyone—particularly the Republican Party, the media, the courts…
especially the Court…
… the Department of Justice, and the American electorate. (As Heschel once said, “Some are guilty, but all are responsible.”)
One of the report’s KEY Findings: There is plenty of evidence to convict Trump, and he would have been convicted, if he had not won the election.
Mr. Trump was thereafter reelected as President of the United States, and as a result, on November 25, 2024, the Special Counsel moved to dismiss the case against Mr. Trump because of the Department of Justice's longstanding position that the Constitution forbids the federal indictment and prosecution of a sitting President
Notice that word, “position.”
The Department of Justice, the Attorney General, and Special Counsel Jack Smith—like Robert Mueller before—refuse to prosecute Trump’s treason, crimes, and insurrection not because there is a law that forbids a president from being federally indicted.
Nooooooo. There is no such law.
Not because there is a statute, code, or regulation that states a president cannot be tried, convicted, sentenced, or indicted. There is none.
No. The thing preventing a sitting president from being held accountable for his crimes against democracy is the Department of Justice’s position.
In other words, they decided not to.
When the history of our current Democratic Death-Spiral is written, remember that, rather than do everything possible to defend democracy and elections, the Department of Justice did everything possible to robotically follow the obsolete reasoning contained in a pair of decades-old legal memos.
Nice work, everyone.
The report continues…
“Substantial evidence demonstrates that Mr. Trump then engaged in an unprecedented criminal effort to overturn the legitimate results of the election in order to retain power. Although he did so primarily in his private capacity as a candidate, and with the assistance of multiple private co-conspirators, Mr. Trump also attempted to use the power and authority of the United States Government in furtherance of his scheme.”
“As set forth in the original and superseding indictments, when it became clear that Mr. Trump had lost the election and that lawful means of challenging the election results had failed, he resorted to a series of criminal efforts to retain power. This included attempts to induce state officials to ignore true vote counts; to manufacture fraudulent slates of presidential electors in seven states that he had lost; to force Justice Department officials and his own Vice President, Michael R. Pence, to act in contravention of their oaths and to instead advance Mr. Trump's personal interests; and, on January 6, 2021, to direct an angry mob to the United States Capitol to obstruct the congressional certification of the presidential election and then leverage rioters’ violence to further delay it. In service of these efforts, Mr. Trump worked with other people to achieve a common plan: to overturn the election results and perpetuate himself in office.”
Did Somebody Order a Weaponized Department of Justice?
“Mr. Trump, attempted to use the Justice Department to open sham election crime
investigations and influence state legislatures with knowingly false claims of election fraud.”
“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.”
“Mr. Trump’s Misuse of Official Power Through the Justice Department”
“As his efforts to directly pressure state officials to discount legitimate votes failed and the fraudulent elector plan unfolded, Mr. Trump also tried another tack: he attempted to wield federal power to perpetuate his fraud claims and retain office.”
“Mr. Trump told the Acting Attorney General and Acting Deputy Attorney General that they should ‘just say that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.’ In the same call, alluding to replacing Justice Department leadership if they did not do as he directed, Mr. Trump also said, "people tell me [Co-Conspirator 4] is great. I should put him in.”
“Mr. Trump made clear that he wanted to appoint Co-Conspirator 4 because Co-Conspirator 4 would cause the Justice Department to send to the targeted states the false letter that the Acting Attorney General and the Acting Deputy Attorney General had rejected as inaccurate and improper. Mr. Trump ultimately did not do so only because he was informed that if he did, mass resignations within the Justice Department and the White House would result in Co-Conspirator “leading a graveyard.”
In repeated conversations, day after day, Mr. Trump pressed Mr. Pence to use his
ministerial position as President of the Senate to change the election outcome, often by citing false claims of election fraud as justification; he even falsely told Mr. Pence that the ‘Justice Department [was] finding major infractions.’”
“When Mr. Pence repeatedly refused to act as Mr. Trump wanted, Mr. Trump told him that ‘hundreds of thousands’ of people would ‘hate his guts’ and think he was ‘stupid,’ and that Mr. Pence was ‘too honest.’ Surrounding these communications, Mr. Trump frequently took to Twitter to exhort supporters to travel to Washington for January 6.”
Fascism: it comes at ya fast. For real.
“That night, Mr. Trump used a speech in Dalton, Georgia, to focus the crowd on the idea that Mr. Pence could change the results of the election, saying, ‘I hope Mike Pence comes through for us, I have to tell you. I hope that our great Vice President, our great Vice President comes through for us. . . . Of course, if he doesn't come through, I won't like him quite as much.’ The next day, on January 5, when Mr. Trump again failed to make headway with Mr. Pence in a private conversation, Mr. Trump warned that he would have to publicly criticize Mr. Pence. Mr. Trump then (in response to a New York Times report on the conversation between Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence) issued a false statement claiming, ‘The Vice President and I are in total agreement that the Vice President has the power to act.’”
That’s just from the first 30 pages! … Plenty more criming, attacking democracy, insurrection-y stuff, and the Republican Party’s fascism-forward approach to ending elections and seizing permanent power in the full 174 pages!
