Jack Smith's last chapter: 4 takeaways from the special counsel report on Trump and Jan. 6
WASHINGTON – Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith’s report on the Jan. 6 investigation marked the final chapter in a four-year story of a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol, unprecedented criminal charges against a former president and Donald Trump’s eventual return to office.
For lack of a criminal trial to test the allegations, the 174-page report’s findings remain hotly contested. Smith maintains Trump would have been convicted of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election and obstructing Congress.
But Trump insists after charges were dropped following the 2024 election that he was fully exonerated. He blasted the report as a "lawless political stunt" and Smith for spending $20 million on the investigation.
Here are takeaways about the report and its implications:
Did the report reveal anything new about Trump?
The report largely laid out findings and charges that were already widely known.
Smith's team summarized how Trump pressured state and federal officials with false claims of election fraud in 2020, recruited Republican presidential electors to support him in key swing states that President Joe Biden won, and then spurred a violent mob to march on the Capitol.
"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," Smith wrote.
Trump continues to promote claims of election fraud. He and his allies argued the Republican electors were recruited in case he won court challenges to the 2020 election results. And he said his rally speech on Jan. 6, 2021, at the Ellipse outside the White House used common political phrases such as "fighting for the country" and so was blameless for the riot later that day at the Capitol.
Trump's lawyers criticized the report and investigation as politically motivated.
“Finally, the release of any confidential report prepared by this out-of-control private citizen unconstitutionally posing as a prosecutor would be nothing more than a lawless political stunt, designed to politically harm President Trump and justify the huge sums of taxpayer money Smith unconstitutionally spent on his failed and dismissed cases,” wrote Trump lawyers Todd Blanche, Emil Bove, John Lauro and Gregory Singer.
What did the report say about Jan. 6?
The report itemized key points from the case Smith built alleging Trump tried to steal the election.
Trump's claims of election fraud included dozens of specifics such as that large numbers of dead, nonresident, noncitizen or otherwise ineligible voters had cast ballots. Republican election and law enforcement officials debunked the claims at the time.
“These claims were demonstrably and, in many cases, obviously false,” Smith wrote.
Trump said he recruited Republican electors in case he won court litigation to support them. Smith argued Trump’s deception about his claims was key because people wouldn’t have participated otherwise.
“For example, one Trump elector nominee in Pennsylvania recognized the plan as ‘illegal’ and an attempt ‘to overthrow the Government,’ and he declined to participate,” Smith wrote.
Trump pressured Vice President Mike Pence, in his role as Senate president, to refuse to recognize results from key swing states when Congress counted Electoral College votes on Jan. 6, 2021. Pence refused.
Trump posted on social media a few minutes after rioters breached the Capitol that "Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify.”
A minute later, Secret Service agents evacuated Pence from the Senate chamber − barely ahead of the mob. When an adviser told Trump about the move, according to Smith's report, Trump replied, “So what?”
Why was Smith's report released now?
Long-standing Justice Department policy prohibits prosecuting sitting presidents. Judges dismissed the two cases against Trump – on charges of election interference and mishandling classified documents – at Smith’s request after Trump won the election.
Trump strongly opposed releasing the report and had fought it federal court. His inauguration Monday essentially became an unofficial deadline for Attorney General Merrick Garland to release it.
Tuesday's report release came after U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon in Florida temporarily blocked it, at the request of Trump’s co-defendants, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira. But an appeals court refused to block the report and Garland released it after Trump’s last-ditch emergency request to Cannon.
Garland said he wouldn’t publicly release the second volume until the case against Nauta and De Oliveira is resolved. Cannon, who presided over the classified documents case, scheduled a hearing Friday about that volume.
In the meantime, Garland said he would provide the classified documents volume to the top Republicans and Democrats on the House and Senate Judiciary Committees on the condition they don't release it publicly or talk about it outside a classified setting.
Smith's report is latest in a series of special counsel reports
Smith’s report caps a series of special counsel reports, which Justice Department regulations call for to describe what their investigations found and why they chose to prosecute some charges and not others.
Other recent special counsel reports include:
- David Weiss reported Monday about Hunter Biden’s gun and tax charges. Biden was convicted at trial in Delaware of lying about his drug addiction when he bought and owned a gun in 2018. He pleaded guilty in California to not paying millions in taxes for several years. His father pardoned him before sentencing.
- Robert Hur reported in February 2024 about Joe Biden keeping classified documents at his home and office between serving as vice president and president. Hur’s decision not to charge Biden as a "sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory" spurred questions about the president’s capacity to govern before he abandoned the race for reelection.