U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan of the District of Columbia on Wednesday unsealed key filings in Special Counsel Jack Smith's election case against former President Trump.
On Wednesday, Mr. Chutkan unsealed Mr. Smith's 165-page document after the special counsel turned over it. It included an overview of the case and the evidence Smith plans to use in the eventual trial against Trump.
Mr. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges brought against Mr. Smith.
President Trump indicted for second time in election subversion case brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith
The Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that the president is immune from prosecution for acts in his official capacity.
Mr. Smith was then asked to amend the charges and refile the charges against Mr. Trump to avoid the Supreme Court's ruling. The new indictment maintains the previous criminal charges, but narrows and restructures the charges against Trump following a high court ruling that granted broad immunity to the former president.
In a filing released Wednesday, Smith outlined “fact providers” who said Trump “turned to crime to try to stay in office” after losing the 2020 presidential election. “It was,” he claims.
“Defendants, along with private co-conspirators, engaged in increasingly desperate schemes to overturn the legitimate election results they had lost in seven states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. We launched one after the other,” Smith wrote.
“His efforts included lying to state officials to ignore the true vote count, fabricating fraudulent electoral votes in targeted states, and as Senate President Michael R. These include attempting to disrupt Congress by enlisting Vice President Pence to use the defendant's fraudulent electoral votes to certify the election on January 6, 2021, when all else failed. on Sunday, leading a mob of angry supporters to the U.S. Capitol to disrupt Congressional certification.
“The consistency of these efforts has been a deception,” Smith said, adding that Trump and his co-conspirators are denying the federal government's ability to collect and tabulate election results, as set out in the Constitution and election law. Alleges that he was involved in a conspiracy to disrupt the Counting Act (ECA); a conspiracy to obstruct the official process by which Congress certifies the legitimate results of a presidential election. and a conspiracy against the right of millions of Americans to vote and have their votes counted. ”
Trump campaign spokesperson Stephen Chan told FOX News Digital, “Release of Tim Walz's unconstitutional J6 brief, full of falsehoods, on the heels of his disastrous debate performance undermines American democracy. “This is another clear attempt by the Harris-Biden administration to undermine and interfere in this election.”
“Deranged Jack Smith and the radical Democrats in Washington, D.C. are hell-bent on weaponizing the Justice Department to hang on to power,” Chan said. “President Trump is in the ascendancy, much to the dismay of radical Democrats throughout the deep state.”
Chan added: “This entire incident is a partisan, unconstitutional witch hunt and should be dismissed in its entirety along with all the rest of the Democratic Party's fabrications.”
Smith disclosed his findings in a filing and claimed that people close to Trump tried to tell him that the claims were all “bull claims.”
Smith details conversations between Trump's anonymous personal lawyer and the former president. The lawyer told Trump that the campaign was “investigating the allegations of fraud and had hired outside experts to do so, but found no corroboration.”
“Defendant told Defendant that if the campaign brought these claims to court, they would all be thrown out because they were all 'bull's-eye,'” the filing states. Smith claims his lawyers discussed the investigation with Trump and “debunked all the facts.” Main claim. ”
Smith also detailed alleged interactions between Trump and Pence in the days after the election.
Smith details a Nov. 7, 2020 phone call between Pence and Trump in which Pence reminded him that he had “embraced a dying party and breathed new life into it.” It is said that he “tried to encourage Mr. Trump 'as a friend.'”
Smith also detailed a private lunch between Trump and Pence on November 12, 2020, in which Pence allegedly gave Trump a “face-saving option.” . The option was to “make no concessions, but recognize that the process is over,” according to the filing.
Smith also detailed another private lunch between Trump and Pence on Nov. 16, 2020, during which Pence asked Trump to accept the election results and move forward in 2024. He is said to have tried to encourage him to run again. At the time, Trump reportedly said: We know that 2024 is still far away. ”
Smith detailed another private lunch between the two in which Pence allegedly “encouraged” Trump “not to see the election as a loss, but just as a break.”
Smith wrote that after that lunch, Trump allegedly asked Pence in the Oval Office, “What do you think we should do?”
“After exhausting all legal procedures in the courts and Congress, if that is not enough,” Pence said. [the defendant] You should “bow”. ”
Meanwhile, Smith said a White House official who was traveling with Trump heard Trump telling his family, “It doesn't matter if you win or lose the election, you still have to fight like hell.” He claims to have heard it.
Smith claimed that Trump “knew within a week of the election that there was no evidence of widespread election fraud in Arizona,” and that Trump also “recognized that there was no evidence of widespread election fraud in Georgia.” “I realized early on that the allegations were false.''
Smith argued that “no allegations or evidence are protected by presidential immunity” and that Trump's “conspiracy was private.”
“He operated in his private capacity as a candidate, making extensive use of civilian and campaign infrastructure in an effort to overturn the election results,” Smith alleged. “However, to the limited extent that the superseding indictment and the evidence presented reflect official conduct, the government can rebut the presumption of immunity, because reliance on that conduct in this prosecution is This is because it does not pose a danger of intruding on the powers or functions of the executive branch. ”
Fox News' Bill Mears and David Spunt contributed to this report.
