Trump 'would have been convicted of trying to overturn 2020 election if he had lost 2024 vote'

14 January 2025, 07:53

Donald Trump would have been found guilty of trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election if he had not been re-elected in 2024, a US government report has found.

The president-elect took part in an "unprecedented" attempt to cling to power after his 2020 defeat to Biden, according to special prosecutor Jack Smith.

Mr Smith submitted a report to US Congress detailing his team's findings about Mr Trump's efforts to cling to power.

He said that Mr Trump inspired acts of violence in his supporters in the January 6 US Capitol riots, as well as knowingly spreading a false narrative about the election.

But efforts to prosecute Mr Trump were thwarted by his victory in 2024. The US Justice Department does not prosecute sitting presidents.

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"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," the report said.

District Judge Aileen Cannon, who was nominated to the bench by Mr Trump, had earlier temporarily blocked the department from releasing the entire report on Mr Smith's investigations into Mr Trump that led to two separate criminal cases.

Ms Cannon's latest order on Monday cleared the way for the release of the volume detailing Mr Smith's case that accused Mr Trump, a Republican, of conspiring to overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden, a Democrat.

She set a hearing for Friday on whether the department can release a separate volume on the case that accused Mr Trump of hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate after he left the White House in 2021.

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The department has said it will not publicly disclose that volume as long as criminal proceedings against two of Mr Trump's co-defendants remain pending.

Ms Cannon dismissed the classified documents case in July, ruling that Mr Smith's appointment was illegal.

The Justice Department abandoned both cases after Mr Trump's presidential victory in November, citing department policy that prohibits the federal prosecutions of sitting presidents.

Mr Smith resigned his position on Friday after handing in his report to Attorney General Merrick Garland, the Justice Department revealed in a footnote in a court filing over the weekend.

Mr Trump's spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement that it was "time for Joe Biden and Merrick Garland to do the right thing and put a final stop to the political weaponisation of our justice system".

Monday's ruling could open the door for the public to learn additional details in the coming days about Mr Trump's frantic but ultimately failed effort to cling to power in the run-up to the deadly January 6 2021 insurrection at the Capitol.

But it could also lead to the classified documents volume being shelved long term, with the Justice Department under the Trump administration unlikely to make it public.

Lawyers for the Republican president-elect's two co-defendants, Mr Trump's valet Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira, had argued that the release of the report would prejudice them given that criminal proceedings remain ongoing against them in the form of a Justice Department appeal against Ms Cannon's dismissal of charges.

As a compromise, the Justice Department said that it would not make that document public so long as those proceedings continue but would instead share it with select congressional officials for their private review.

But Ms Cannon halted those plans and instead scheduled a hearing for Friday afternoon.

"Release of Volume II, even on a limited basis as promised by the United States, risks irreversibly and substantially impairing the legal rights of defendants in this criminal proceeding," Ms Cannon wrote.

"The Court is not willing to make that gamble on the basis of generalised interest by members of Congress, at least not without full briefing and a hearing on the subject," she added.

"Nor has the United States presented any justification to support the suggestion that Volume II must be released to Congress now, as opposed to after a reasonable period for an expedited hearing and judicial deliberation on the subject."