by Mick the Ram

In-coming president Donald Trump would have been convicted of illegally trying to overturn the result of of his defeated 2020 election campaign, if he had not successfully been re-elected in November 2024 to the top position in the White House, where he returns next week.

That is according to a Department of Justice report that has been released to Congress, after Attorney General Merrick Garland sent through the 137-page “first volume” document in the early hours of Tuesday 14 January.

Although Jack Smith – the special counsel – who investigated Mr Trump in two specific cases – has actually resigned from his post ahead of Trump’s return, the path was cleared by a judge for the first part of his report to be seen.

It is understood that in the report Mr Smith accuses Mr Trump of “unprecedented efforts to unlawfully retain power” through a variety of methods, including “threats and encouragement of violence against his perceived opponents”.

An opening letter from Mr Smith to the Attorney General remarked how “laughable” it is that Trump believes the Joe Biden administration, or other political actors, influenced or directed his decisions as a prosecutor, stating that he was guided by the Principles of Federal Prosecution.

He continued to state that both of the Trump cases represented situations that were the “most flagrant and publicly harming, and where the proof was the most certain.” His report explained that the “admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial”.

The report added: “It has long been the department’s interpretation that the [US] Constitution forbids the federal indictment and prosecution of a sitting president, but the election results raised for the first time the question of the lawful course when a private citizen who has already been indicted is then elected president.”

The document goes on to say: “But 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.”

Mr Smith was also tasked with overseeing the investigation into whether Trump or other officials and entities interfered with the peaceful transfer of power following the 2020 presidential election, pressurising officials to reverse the result, knowingly spreading lies about election fraud and seeking to exploit the riot at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.

In his lengthy report, Mr Smith said his office fully stands behind the decision to bring criminal charges against Mr Trump because he “resorted to a series of criminal efforts to retain power” after he losing the 2020 election.

Mr Trump of course denied any wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty to both charges brought against him; however, despite efforts by his lawyers to prevent the report’s release, Mr Garland maintained throughout that he would make at least one volume of Smith’s report public.

The judge, Aileen Cannon, ordered a hearing later in the week on whether to release the second part of the report – which focuses on separate allegations that Mr Trump illegally kept classified government documents at his home in Florida.

In an early post on Truth Social, Donald Trump called Jack Smith “desperate” and “deranged” for releasing his “fake findings” in the middle of the night.

He maintained his innocence, taunting Mr Smith by writing that the prosecutor “was unable to get his case tried before the election, which I won in a landslide”, before adding: “THE VOTERS HAVE SPOKEN!!!”