(AFP) – A former top prosecutor told lawmakers his investigations into Donald Trump demonstrated “beyond a reasonable doubt” the US president committed crimes aimed at overturning the 2020 election and hoarding government documents, according to testimony released Wednesday. The 255-page transcript, made public by the House Judiciary Committee, provides the most comprehensive account yet of former special counsel Jack Smith’s reasoning for charging Trump — and a point-by-point rebuttal to Republican claims that the prosecutions were politically motivated.
In a sworn deposition lasting more than eight hours earlier this month, Smith said the decision to bring charges rested with him but stressed that the underlying conduct was Trump’s alone. “Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election and to prevent the lawful transfer of power,” Smith said. “Our investigation also developed powerful evidence that showed that President Trump willfully retained highly classified documents after he left office in January of 2021, storing them at his social club, including in a ballroom and a bathroom.”
Trump had been charged with conspiring to overturn the 2020 election and obstruct the peaceful transfer of power, and with unlawfully retaining classified documents while blocking efforts to recover them. Both prosecutions were dropped after his reelection, in line with Justice Department policy barring the prosecution of a sitting president. Smith noted that grand juries in two federal districts returned indictments after reviewing evidence gathered by career prosecutors.
He said Trump knowingly pursued false claims of election fraud to block certification of the 2020 vote, and rejected arguments that such conduct was protected speech. “There is no historical analog for what President Trump did in this case,” Smith told lawmakers. Smith also described the 2021 Capitol riot as an assault on American democracy, saying the violence was foreseeable and later exploited to pressure Congress to delay certification of the election results.
On the documents case, he said prosecutors uncovered powerful evidence that Trump repeatedly obstructed government efforts to recover the material, though a court order limited what he could disclose. And he repeatedly rejected suggestions that the timing or substance of the prosecutions was influenced by politics or the 2024 presidential race. “If asked whether to prosecute a former president based on the same facts today,” he said, “I would do so regardless of whether that president was a Republican or a Democrat.”
© 2024 AFP
