What happened
Attorney General Merrick Garland early this morning released special counsel Jack Smith’s final report on his efforts to prosecute President-elect Donald Trump for his attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss. Garland submitted that portion of Smith’s report to Congress after a court-imposed deadline expired at midnight.
Who said what
Smith, who resigned Friday, said in the 174-page report that he had to drop his case after Trump won in November due to the Justice Department’s “categorical” view that presidents cannot be prosecuted. But his team “assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial” if Trump had come up short.
When Trump lost in 2020, the report said, “he resorted to a series of criminal efforts to retain power.” Smith placed the blame for the violent Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol “squarely at Mr. Trump’s feet,” The New York Times said.
The report “amounted to an extraordinary rebuke of a president-elect,” charging him with “crimes that struck at the heart of American democracy” days before he regains power, the Times said. Responding to the report, Trump claimed he was “totally innocent” and called Smith a “lamebrain prosecutor who was unable to get his case tried before the election.”
What next?
Garland temporarily withheld the second volume of Smith’s report, pertaining to Trump’s retention of highly classified documents, and Trump’s picks to head the Justice Department are widely expected to ensure it is never released.