Tweets And Other Evidence

Jack Smith’s new report

A 165 page document was created by US Special Counsel Jack Smith, basically to assist presiding Judge Chutkin on how to impliment the Supreme Court ruling on executive immunity on official acts as it concerns his case against Donald Trump.

The report opens with:

“When the defendant lost the 2020 presidential election, he resorted to crimes to try to stay in office.”

There are no new charges here, but there are details and quotes from staff members and others that provide a stark view of Trump’s frame of mind on January 6th (and before). Apparently names have been redacted, but journalists already know who they are.

The President was willfully blind to the facts that he lost the election, that he was urging people to act in fraudulent and dishonest ways. Trump was not acting as President when he sought to overturn the 2020 election results. He sidelined existing campaign staff, who had been telling him what he did not want to hear. Which was he lost the election. Trump turned to a private attorney who falsely claimed victory and spread knowingly false claims of election fraud. Trump knew his claims were false. Pence tried gently to convince Trump that he lost in several phone exchanges.

Trump repeated the same lies of election fraud at his speech on January sixth and used these lies to inflame the large and angry crowd of his supporters.

Smith detailed a conversation between Trump and Pence on January 1, when Pence argued that he did not have the constitutional power to change the election. Trump berated him: “Hundreds of thousands of people are going to hate your guts, and people are going to think you’re stupid.”

He said, “You’re too honest.”

Smith argues that these conversations between Trump and Pence have no bearing on the function of the Executive Branch; arguments using the Supreme Court decision on Executive immunity will not hold water.

Donald Trump was not acting as President, he was acting as a candidate.