In the redacted document, Special Counsel Jack Smith laid out a devastating case against Donald Trump for using lies to attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
This is how Smith began his 180 page filing:
When the defendant lost the 2020 presidential election, he resorted to crimes to try to stay in office. With private co-conspirators, the defendant launched a series of increasingly desperate plans to overturn the legitimate election results in seven states that he had lostâArizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin (the âtargeted statesâ).
His efforts included lying to state officials in order to induce them to ignore true vote counts; manufacturing fraudulent electoral votes in the targeted states; attempting to enlist Vice President Michael R. Pence, in his role as President of the Senate, to obstruct Congressâs certification of the election by using the defendantâs fraudulent electoral votes; and when all else had failed, on January 6, 2021,directing an angry crowd of supporters to the United States Capitol to obstruct the congressional certification. The throughline of these efforts was deceit: the defendantâs and co conspiratorsâ knowingly false claims of election fraud. They used these lies in furtherance of three conspiracies:
1) a conspiracy to interfere with the federal government function by which the nation collects and counts election results, which is set forth in the Constitution and the Electoral Count Act (ECA);
2) a conspiracy to obstruct the official proceeding in which Congress certifies the legitimate results of the presidential election; and 3) a conspiracy against the rights to millions of Americans to vote and have their votes counted.
Smith lays out the evidence that Trump knew his election fraud claims were lies, but he used them in the commission of multiple crimes, and when asked why he didn’t bow out of the race gracefully, Trump said 2024 was really far away.
Jack Smith has the evidence that Trump knew his stolen election claims were and are lies.
With about a month to before election day, we have our first October surprise, courtesy of Jack Smith.
