Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs Attorney General Merrick Garland has submitted to Congress a portion of former special counsel Jack Smith’s final report on his investigations into President-elect Donald Trump after a court order blocking its release expired at midnight Tuesday, according to a source familiar with the matter. In his report, Smith wrote that his office began its prosecution of Trump because it had enough evidence against him, saying that “[b]ut 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 was sent to Congress and made public shortly afterward, following days of legal wrangling over whether it should partially or fully be disclosed to the public. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon on Monday declined a request from Walt Nauta, an aide to Trump, and Carlos de Oliveira, former property manager at Mar-a-Lago, to block volume one of Smith’s final report from becoming public. That portion pertains to Trump’s alleged efforts to subvert the transfer of power after the 2020 election. Volume two delves into allegations that Trump unlawfully held onto classified documents after the end of his first term in 2021 and obstructed the Justice Department’s investigation.In a letter to Garland accompanying the report, Smith defended his decision to pursue charges against the president-elect and rejected Trump’s accusations that his actions were influenced by the top ranks of the Justice Department.
“To all who know me well, the claim from Mr. Trump that my decisions as a prosecutor were influenced or directed by the Biden administration or other political actors is, in a word, laughable,” Smith wrote, adding later in the report his office had “no interest in affecting the presidential election.”Following the release of the section of the report on the 2020 election probe, he president-elect attacked the former special counsel on social media, calling him a “a lamebrain prosecutor who was unable to get his case tried before the Election, which I won in a landslide.””To show you how desperate Deranged Jack Smith is, he released his Fake findings at 1:00 A.M. in the morning,” Trump said early Tuesday. Smith used the first volume of his report to defend his work and investigative findings, alleging, “The throughline of all of Mr. Trump’s criminal efforts was deceit — knowingly false claims of election.”
Much of the 137-page volume recounts information that has already been made public through court filings during the course of the now-dismissed case against Trump filed in Washington, D.C. It also includes images of the violence that transpired at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of Trump’s supporters breached the building in an effort to stop Congress from reaffirming President Biden’s win.Prosecutors alleged that the rioters who descended on the Capitol “had been motivated and directed by Trump,” a claim Trump has denied. The former special counsel wrote that his office was “prepared” to prove “Trump willfully caused his supporters to obstruct and attempt to obstruct the proceeding by summoning them to Washington, D.C.” Still, Smith wrote that his office “did not develop direct evidence — such as an explicit admission or communication with co-conspirators — of Mr. Trump’s subjective intent to cause the full scope of the violence that occurred on January 6.”Now, four years since the Jan. 6 attack, more than 1,500 people have been charged as a result of their conduct at the Capitol. The former special counsel wrote that “with that in mind, Mr. Trump’s relative culpability weighed heavily in favor of charging him, as the individual most responsible for what occurred at the Capitol on January 6.”Smith revealed that through voluntary interviews of more than 250 individuals and the grand-jury testimony of 55 people, his office was able to gather evidence that pointed to Trump’s alleged crime, including allegations that he sought to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence into delaying the vote certification on Jan. 6, 2021, and he supported the organization of a false slate of electors.Pence sat for a grand-jury interview with prosecutors during the investigation, CBS News reported at the time.The former special counsel also detailed ways in which he alleged Trump sought to pressure the Justice Department at the time to investigate the false claims of fraud. At one point, according to the report, Trump allegedly told his acting attorney general to “just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.”
A federal grand jury returned an indictment charging Trump with four counts in the summer of 2023. He pleaded not guilty to all of the counts. But Smith wrote that his office considered — and ultimately decided against — bringing other charges. One potential charge was under the Insurrection Act, a Civil War-era law that bars those who incite an insurrection against the U.S. from holding federal office.But Smith said that while courts have described the Jan. 6 attack as an “insurrection,” his office was “aware of the litigation risk that would be presented by employing this long-dormant statute.”Trump was charged with allegedly participating in crimes with at least six unnamed co-conspirators, and Smith wrote that his office determined some shared criminal culpability with the president-elect. Smith said that after Trump was indicted in August 2023, his office continued to look into whether any of the other alleged participants should face charges. He said that he referred to a U.S. attorney’s office for further investigation evidence that one individual may have committed unrelated crimes.Smith’s office made a “preliminary determination” that admissible evidence could justify pursuing charges against some of Trump’s co-conspirators and had started to look into how to proceed. But because his team did not reach a conclusion or seek any further indictments, Smith wrote that the report “should not be read to allege that any particular person other than Mr. Trump committed a crime, nor should it be read to exonerate any particular person.”Ahead of the report’s release, Trump’s defense attorneys asked Garland to remove Smith from his post and either decline to release the special counsel’s report or hand the matter over to Trump’s incoming administration, according to a letter released last week. The letter, addressed to Garland and a top career official at the Justice Department, alleged the special counsel did not have the legal authority to submit a final report summarizing his investigations into Trump and urged the attorney general to “put an end to this weaponization of the justice system and move forward constructively.” The correspondence was written in part by defense attorneys Todd Blanche and Emile Bove, Trump’s picks to serve as deputy attorney general and principal deputy attorney general in his new administration.
Trump has slammed Smith’s investigation as politically motivated and denied all wrongdoing in the case. The legal battle over Smith’s report on TrumpThe Justice Department’s publication of the first volume of Smith’s report marked the culmination of a fast-moving legal battle that transpired over the past week and played out days before Trump is to be sworn in for a second term. If the battle had continued until the president-elect’s return to the White House on Jan. 20, it’s not likely the special counsel’s report would have been publicly released.Cannon, who was assigned to oversee the documents case, issued a temporary order last week that temporarily blocked the Justice Department from making the report public, after which a federal appeals court declined to stop its release. The district judge’s order expired at 12 a.m. Tuesday.Garland has said he wouldn’t publicly release the second part of the report because proceedings involving Nauta and de Oliveira are ongoing. Smith resigned his position as special counsel last Friday, and Justice Department prosecutors have taken over the ongoing matters arising from his investigations. Smith’s two probes led to separate prosecutions of Trump, but they came to a close because of his victory in the November presidential election.As is required for special counsels, Smith drafted and submitted a final report to the attorney general last week. Garland has vowed to make public all special counsel reports completed while he is attorney general, and has so far followed through on that pledge, including after the investigation into Mr. Biden’s handling of classified documents. He released the special counsel’s final report on the investigation into Hunter Biden’s tax evasion and gun possession cases Monday night.Last week, Garland informed Congress that Smith had finished his investigation and submitted the two-volume report. It’s unclear whether the second volume, related to the classified documents case, will ever be disclosed to the American people.
Smith’s tenure as special counsel began in November 2022, when Garland tapped him to take over the ongoing investigations involving Trump. The president-elect repeatedly vowed to fire the special counsel when he returned to the White House.Federal grand juries returned two indictments against the president-elect, marking the first time a former president was accused of federal crimes. In the 2020 election case, brought in Washington, D.C., Trump faced four charges, including conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding. In the documents case, the president-elect was charged with 40 counts, including willfully retaining national defense information and conspiracy to obstruct justice.Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges and accused Smith of mounting a politically charged investigation against him because he was Mr. Biden’s political rival.The 2020 election case landed before the Supreme Court with Trump’s claim he was entitled to presidential immunity that shielded him from prosecution, since the conduct that gave rise to the charges occurred during his first term in office.In July, the high court issued a landmark ruling finding that former presidents cannot face charges for official acts, but were not immune from prosecution for unofficial actions. The decision led to further proceedings before the federal district court overseeing the case.But the charges were dismissed in November following Trump’s election to a second term, as longstanding Justice Department policy forbids the prosecution of a sitting president.Arden Farhi, Olivia Rinaldi, Karina Perez, Julia Wachtel contributed to this report.
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Robert Legare
Robert Legare is a CBS News multiplatform reporter and producer covering the Justice Department, federal courts and investigations. He was previously an associate producer for the “CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell.”
