Special Counsel Report: Trump Election Subversion Case

Huckleberry

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Special Counsel Report Says Trump Would Have Been Convicted in Election Case
The report, which said the special counsel’s office stood “fully behind” the merits of the prosecution, amounted to an extraordinary rebuke of the president-elect.

Jack Smith, the special counsel who indicted President-elect Donald J. Trump on charges of illegally seeking to cling to power after losing the 2020 election, said in a final report released early Tuesday that the evidence would have been sufficient to convict Mr. Trump in a trial, had his 2024 election victory not made it impossible for the prosecution to continue.

“The department’s view that the Constitution prohibits the continued indictment and prosecution of a president 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,” Mr. Smith wrote.

He continued: “Indeed, but for Mr. Trump’s election and imminent return to the presidency, the office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial.”
 

Huckleberry

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Four Takeaways From the Special Counsel’s Report on the Trump Election Case
Jack Smith wrote that Donald Trump would have been convicted had the case been allowed to proceed and explained why he didn’t pursue charges of incitement of the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.

The Justice Department released a 137-page volume early Tuesday morning laying out the details of the investigation that the former special counsel Jack Smith conducted into President-elect Donald J. Trump’s attempts to overturn his loss in the 2020 election.

The release of the report, which Mr. Trump’s legal team had vehemently fought, is likely to be the Justice Department’s final word on the attempt to use the legal system to hold Mr. Trump accountable for conspiring to subvert the election results. Because Mr. Trump won the 2024 election, prosecutors were forced under a binding Justice Department policy to drop the case against him.

Criminal investigators, the report said, interviewed more than 250 people and obtained grand jury testimony from more than 55 witnesses — some after lengthy battles over executive privilege. Mr. Smith said the work of the House committee that separately examined the Capitol attack was only “a small part of the office’s investigative record.”
 
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Huckleberry

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Read the Special Counsel’s Report on the Trump Election Case
The former special counsel Jack Smith stood behind his case against President-elect Donald J. Trump in a report released early Tuesday, saying Mr. Trump would have been convicted but for the Justice Department’s policy against prosecuting sitting presidents.
 

Huckleberry

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And the predictable response:


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JDCrimson

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Okay, now tell me what he actually did so that I can make up my own mind. I get that you believe you could have gotten a conviction given the opportunity to prosecute.
 
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Isaiah 63:1

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This is silly (not the thread or the OP; Jack Smith’s statement). The requirement for an indictment is enough evidence for a reasonable chance at a conviction in the eyes of the grand jury, and of course the defense doesn’t get to rebut the evidence until trial. All he’s saying is that he had evidence, and believed (as a prosecutor must) that it was enough; but not all trials actually end in conviction.
 

mdb-tpet

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The only Deranged thing is that Trump got away keeping US secrets and storing them in a bathroom and on a stage in an unsecured facility. Any other person would be in jail for years for this. He's probably gotten many covert ops people killed and allowed much of our top advantages for our military get stolen. I KNOW someone from Russia was gleefully going through those boxes in the middle of the night. He's simply a disaster for the US, and it's only going to get worse as China and Russia eat his and our defensive lunches.
 
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Bamaro

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This is silly (not the thread or the OP; Jack Smith’s statement). The requirement for an indictment is enough evidence for a reasonable chance at a conviction in the eyes of the grand jury, and of course the defense doesn’t get to rebut the evidence until trial. All he’s saying is that he had evidence, and believed (as a prosecutor must) that it was enough; but not all trials actually end in conviction.
His evidence was about as close to a slam dunk conviction as you can get. Smith is very detailed, maybe too detailed in this case. Unfortunately that coupled with constant legal chalanges in front of a biased incompetant judge (I think she was involved in these) delayed prosecution way too long.
 

Its On A Slab

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The only Deranged thing is that Trump got away keeping US secrets and storing them in a bathroom and on a stage in an unsecured facility. Any other person would be in jail for years for this. He's probably gotten many covert ops people killed and allowed much of our top advantages for our military get stolen. I KNOW someone from Russia was gleefully going through those boxes in the middle of the night. He's simply a disaster for the US, and it's only going to get worse as China and Russia eat his and our defensive lunches.
But remember, the adults are returning to Washington.
 
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Isaiah 63:1

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His evidence was about as close to a slam dunk conviction as you can get….
i’ve seen people rim out on slam dunks (paging Marcia Clark and Chris Darden).There’s a reason they hold trials, not just sentence people based on indictments. I’m not defending Trump or attacking the prosecution per se. I’m just saying that for a prosecutor to claim he was going to get a conviction on a case he never took to trial is speculative and to be expected, but not dispositive…
 

Its On A Slab

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i’ve seen people rim out on slam dunks (paging Marcia Clark and Chris Darden).There’s a reason they hold trials, not just sentence people based on indictments. I’m not defending Trump or attacking the prosecution per se. I’m just saying that for a prosecutor to claim he was going to get a conviction on a case he never took to trial is speculative and to be expected, but not dispositive…
Trump will still take a victory lap, and his supporters will fall in line with the exoneration meme.

Like they did when the Mueller report came out,, braying that it proved that there was no collusion with the Kremlin in 2016. Which was patently false. But in these times, the truth doesn't really matter any more.
 
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CrimsonJazz

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i’ve seen people rim out on slam dunks (paging Marcia Clark and Chris Darden).There’s a reason they hold trials, not just sentence people based on indictments. I’m not defending Trump or attacking the prosecution per se. I’m just saying that for a prosecutor to claim he was going to get a conviction on a case he never took to trial is speculative and to be expected, but not dispositive…
Not to mention, what do we really expect Smith to say? "Yep, we would've lost anyway, so I guess it all worked out." His reputation was not repaired in any sense during all this. Why the DOJ choose him over a prosecutor with demonstrable integrity and competence has been a mystery to me since the beginning. Garland might be a loathsome piece of crap, but he is an intelligent loathsome piece of crap. This horrible decision might well have changed the course of history.
 

TIDE-HSV

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Not to mention, what do we really expect Smith to say? "Yep, we would've lost anyway, so I guess it all worked out." His reputation was not repaired in any sense during all this. Why the DOJ choose him over a prosecutor with demonstrable integrity and competence has been a mystery to me since the beginning. Garland might be a loathsome piece of crap, but he is an intelligent loathsome piece of crap. This horrible decision might well have changed the course of history.
I'm puzzled. Can you detail why Smith was "horrible?" That's not his reputation in the legal profession...
 

CrimsonJazz

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I'm puzzled. Can you detail why Smith was "horrible?" That's not his reputation in the legal profession...

His failure to convict Republicans and Democrats alike show this is not a partisan take. His unanimous loss in the Robert F. McDonnell hearing before SCOTUS earned him a firm reprimand before the same court. He is overzealous and seems to have some rather fanciful interpretations of the law. I'm sure he has a fine reputation among the "get Trump" crowd, but who else?

I realize that Garland probably saw Smith as an expendable attack dog. If Smith got caught tampering with evidence or misleading the court about it (he did) well, that's on him and nothing you can blame Garland for, right? In any case, Smith is not someone you want if you are seriously trying to get a conviction of a powerful person. Had Trump lost the election, one could argue that the investigation and indictment would have fulfilled its true purpose.
 

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