Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. president Donald Trump makes a campaign stop at manufacturing company Fork Productions in Walker, Michigan, U.S., on September 27, 2024.
brian snyder reuter
A federal judge on Wednesday unsealed a redacted motion by special counsel Jack Smith detailing evidence against former President Donald Trump in a criminal election interference case in Washington, D.C.
Smith’s 165-page filing argues that despite the Supreme Court’s July ruling that Trump has presumptive immunity for official acts as president, the Republican presidential nominee has lost the 2020 election. He argued that he could still be prosecuted for his efforts to overturn it.
“When the defendant lost the 2020 presidential election, he committed crimes in an attempt to remain in office,” Smith wrote.
“Defendants, along with private co-conspirators, launched a series of increasingly desperate schemes to overturn the legitimate election results in the seven states they lost,” he wrote.
Judge Tanya Chutkan unsealed the filing less than five weeks before Trump faces Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.
If Trump wins the election, he will have the power to order the Justice Department to dismiss criminal cases against him.
President Trump has argued that his attempt to undo President Joe Biden’s election victory amounted to an official act of the presidency and was protected from prosecution by a high court immunity ruling.
“That is not the case,” Smith wrote in Wednesday’s filing. “Although the defendant was a sitting president of the accused in the conspiracy, his plan was essentially private.”
Smith wrote that Trump “acted as a candidate when he pursued multiple criminal means to interfere with the government’s ability to collect and count votes through fraud and deception.” He noted that the president has “no official role” in his job.
Smith urged Chutkan to rule that Trump “must be tried for his private crimes like any other citizen.”
In response to the charges, Trump campaign spokesman Stephen Chan said without evidence that the timing of the release was intended to distract from Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz’s debate performance on Tuesday night. He suggested that it amounted to a deliberate effort.
“Deranged Jack Smith and the radical Democrats in Washington, D.C. are hell-bent on weaponizing the Justice Department to cling to power,” Chan said, adding that the election lawsuit against Trump “will be dismissed in its entirety. You should,” he added.
Wednesday’s wide-ranging filing details the arguments and evidence that federal prosecutors would present if the case went to trial.
It appears that some of this evidence has not been previously reported.
For example, on November 4, 2020, campaign officials and President Trump’s “co-conspirators” disrupted vote-counting operations at the TCF Center in Detroit that “looked unfavorable” to President Trump, according to filings. He said he tried to invite her.
When the co-conspirators were told that a series of votes appeared to be heavily in favor of Biden, they responded, “I want you to find a reason why that’s not the case,” in order to “give us the option to litigate,” according to the filing. It is said that “Even if it is,” he added.
Colleagues suggested to co-conspirators that this risked creating a scene reminiscent of the so-called “Brooks Brothers Riot,” the infamous plot to disrupt vote counting in Florida in the 2000 presidential election. “According to the filing, they responded by ‘rioting’ and saying, ‘Do it!!!'”
The special counsel also wrote that then-Vice President Mike Pence tried to “gradually and gently” persuade Trump to accept his election defeat, citing numerous examples.
On November 7, 2020, as major news outlets reported on Biden’s campaign, Pence “tried to encourage” President Trump to accept that the campaign was over, saying, “You’re taking over a dying party. We’ve given it a new lease on life.” life,” according to the filing.
President Donald Trump arrives at the Brady Press Conference Room at the White House on November 5, 2020 in Washington to discuss the results of the 2020 US presidential election.
Carlos Barria | Reuters
Then, during a private lunch on Nov. 12, Mr. Pence suggested to Mr. Trump a way to save face politically and potentially defuse Mr. Trump’s objections to the election results. “I won’t budge, but I want you to recognize that (the process) is over,” Pence told his bosses. According to the filing.
Four days later, at another private lunch, Pence urged Trump to accept the election results and run again in 2024, according to the filing.
Trump responded, “I don’t know, 2024 is a long way off,” according to the filing.
On December 21, Pence “encouraged” President Trump not to view the election as a ‘loss’ and that it was simply a break,” according to the filing.
Later that day, President Trump asked Pence in the Oval Office, “What do you think we should do?”
Pence responded that if all options were exhausted and “it still wasn’t enough,” Trump should “keep his head down,” according to the filing.
The special counsel’s filing features prominently former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a leading promoter of false voter fraud claims after the 2020 election.
As Trump pursues a long-running lawsuit to overturn his defeat in key states, he has “sidelined” campaign staff who told him the truth about his defeat. Instead, the special counsel argued, he increasingly relied on Mr. Giuliani, a “personal lawyer seeking to falsely claim victory.”
Rudy Giuliani, personal attorney to US President Donald Trump and former New York City mayor, holds up a document and speaks about the results of the 2020 US presidential election during a press conference in Washington, US, November 19, 2020.
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters
Mr. Giuliani, referred to in redacted filings as “CC1” for co-conspirator #1, was publicly reprimanded by his fellow Republicans for making patently false claims at times.
For example, after Mr. Giuliani falsely claimed that Pennsylvania had collected far more completed absentee ballots than it had mailed, then-Republican National Committee chief legal counsel Justin Riemer criticized Mr. Giuliani’s claims. “This is not true,” he tweeted.
In a private email, Riemer expressed concern that what Giuliani and others are doing is “a joke and being laughed at outside the courtroom,” according to the filing.
The special counsel alleged that after Giuliani learned of Riemer’s tweets and emails, the former New York mayor called Riemer and left a threatening voicemail.
“I really need an explanation for what you said today, because if you don’t have a good explanation, you should resign. Okay? So, call me, or boss ‘Call me and I’ll make you quit.’ That’s better for you,’ Giuliani reportedly said.
Giuliani also reportedly urged then-RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel to fire Riemer.
Reamer has since been “removed from his duties,” the special counsel wrote.
Giuliani spokesman Ted Goodman called Wednesday’s filing “blatant election interference by Jack Smith, who has a long track record of weaponizing the law for political gain.”
“This is the same prosecutor who unfairly pursued Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell in a case that was unanimously reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court. In this case, the Supreme Court reprimanded Jack Smith. and warned of the “unbridled power of criminal prosecutors,” Goodman said in a statement to CNBC.