Judge clears path for Trump election interference report

President-elect Donald Trump will be found guilty of unlawfully trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election (which he failed) if he is not successfully re-elected in 2024, according to a Justice Department report to Congress.

“The admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial,” Special Prosecutor Jack Smith's report said.

Trump said after the report was released that Smith was “unhinged” and his findings were “bogus.”

The 137-page document was sent to Congress after Justice Aileen Cannon cleared the way for the release of the first of two parts of the Smith report, on the election interference case.

She ordered a hearing later this week to discuss whether to release portions of the report about Trump's illegal preservation of classified government documents.

The president-elect takes office on January 20.

Special prosecutor Jack Smith resigned from his position last week.

Smith was appointed in 2022 to oversee the U.S. Department of Justice's investigation into Trump. The Department selects special advisors when potential conflicts of interest exist.

Trump is accused of illegally preserving documents and, in some cases, storing them in rooms at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida that he owns. In the interference case, he is accused of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Both cases resulted in criminal charges against Trump, who has pleaded not guilty and has sought to cast the prosecutions as politically motivated.

But Smith closed the case after Trump was elected in November, under Justice Department rules barring prosecution of a sitting president.

In fact, Smith said in the release of the report: “The Department of Justice's view that the Constitution prohibits the continued prosecution and prosecution of the President is clear and does not take into account the seriousness of the alleged crimes, the strength of the government's evidence,” or the prosecution's case. , which this office fully supports. ”

Since then, there have been repeated legal disputes over material related to the case.

Last week, Judge Cannon temporarily halted the release of Smith's entire report over concerns it could affect the cases of two Trump aides charged alongside him in the classified documents case.

Trump's personal assistant Walter Nota and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos de Oliveira are accused of helping Trump hide the documents.

Unlike Trump's, their cases are still pending, and their attorneys argue that the release of the Smith report could harm future juries and trials.