We just got the most extensive new detail in years about former president Donald Trump\u2019s plot to overturn the 2020 election, in the form of a much-anticipated filing from special counsel Jack Smith.<\/p>\n
The 165-page, partially redacted filing, which was unsealed by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, lays out the evidence Smith\u2019s team would like to present in the long-delayed Jan. 6 federal criminal case against Trump. What evidence Smith can use and what charges can stand is disputed after the Supreme Court recently gave presidents including Trump extensive immunity from criminal prosecution.<\/p>\n
But the filing also doubles as a sort of blueprint for the case ahead. It features some significant revelations and quotes that could be important not just for the legal battle, but for the 2024 election.<\/p>\n
Below are some takeaways from the filing.<\/p>\n
A big part of the case against Trump is making clear that he and those around him knew their plan was corrupt \u2014 that it wasn\u2019t just them really believing the election was stolen.<\/p>\n
And one detail in particular stands out.<\/p>\n
The filing cites a scene from Nov. 4, 2020, at the TCF Center in Detroit. It says a colleague of a Trump campaign official and an alleged co-conspirator informed them that a batch of votes that heavily favored Joe Biden was apparently correct.<\/p>\n
The alleged co-conspirator, whose description matches that of Trump Election Day operations chief Mike Roman, allegedly responded by saying \u201cfind a reason it isnt\u201d and \u201cgive me options to file litigation.\u201d And then in a mangled message, the co-conspirator seems to suggest they\u2019re not concerned if the claims are frivolous \u2014 \u201ceven if itbis.\u201d<\/p>\n
The colleague suggested such things could lead to a repeat of the so-called \u201cBrooks Brothers riot,\u201d a fraught scene in South Florida during the contested 2000 presidential election.<\/p>\n
The Trump campaign official and co-conspirator allegedly responded: \u201cMake them riot\u201d and \u201cDo it!!!\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an eerily prescient comment, given that just two months later Trump\u2019s false and often nonsensical claims of voter fraud would lead to a large-scale riot at the Capitol. (It\u2019s worth noting that whether the Brooks Brothers riot was actually particularly violent is disputed.)<\/p>\n
It could certainly help prosecutors drive home the point that the people behind the effort to contest the 2020 election didn\u2019t actually care about the evidence and whether they were right; they just wanted to sow doubt.<\/p>\n
The filing fills out some key details of what happened after the Capitol riot touched off on Jan. 6. It repeatedly reinforces the idea that Trump was well aware of what was taking place even as he, for hours, resisted reining in his supporters and even launched an attack on Vice President Mike Pence at 2:24 p.m.<\/p>\n
The timeline here was filled out somewhat by the House Jan. 6 committee, but the filing contains even more detail.<\/p>\n
It says that around 1:30 p.m., Trump settled into the dining room next to the Oval Office and \u201cspent the afternoon there reviewing Twitter on his phone,\u201d while Fox News played on the TV. It suggests prosecutors have forensic evidence from the activity logs on Trump\u2019s phone to back up that he was \u201cconsistently\u201d using his Twitter application.<\/p>\n
A footnote says that, before Trump\u2019s tweet attacking Pence, advisers told him that \u201cthere\u2019s a riot, and there are people inside the Capitol Building,\u201d as well as \u201cthat someone\u2019s gotten into the Capitol.\u201d<\/p>\n
The filing goes on to say Trump was alone when he tweeted at 2:24 p.m. that Pence \u201cdidn\u2019t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution.\u201d (Rioters at one point chanted for Pence\u2019s hanging, and Pence had been evacuated at 2:13 p.m.)<\/p>\n
All of those are crucial to establishing that Trump had reason to believe Pence could be in danger and that he knew things had gotten out of hand, and that he pressed forward with attacking Pence anyway. It also builds on extensive evidence suggesting Trump declined for hours to do something about the violence. He didn\u2019t tell people to go home until 4:17 p.m.<\/p>\n
But perhaps the most vivid new detail comes from shortly after Trump\u2019s Pence tweet. It says an aide relayed a phone call to Trump stating that Pence had been taken to a secure location. The aide hoped Trump would do something to help, according to the filing.<\/p>\n
Instead, Trump allegedly responded: \u201cSo what?\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hardly the first evidence that Trump might have been indifferent to Pence\u2019s fate and might even have seen utility in the unrest, when it came to his efforts to overturn the election. But it might be among the most striking pieces of evidence on that front.<\/p>\n
Trump won\u2019t face trial before next month\u2019s election, and it\u2019s possible he never will, if he wins. But the filing at the very least served as a late reminder of an ugly, Trump-inspired episode, with just more than a month to go before voters decided whether to return him to the White House.<\/p>\n
Those reminders and new details have been few and far between since the Jan. 6 committee wrapped up its business nearly two years ago. Trump hasn\u2019t appeared to pay any real political price for his four indictments, which include a financial fraud conviction in Manhattan. But many casual voters appear to be unfamiliar with these cases, and the race is looking extremely close. That makes the new disclosures untimely for Trump.<\/p>\n
Trump posted repeatedly on Truth Social on Wednesday claiming the filing was election interference.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe DOJ pushed out this latest \u2018hit job\u2019 today because JD Vance humiliated Tim Walz last night in the Debate,\u201d Trump claimed.<\/p>\n
But the timing also owes to Trump\u2019s lengthy legal challenges, which successfully delayed the trial past the election and gave Trump a significant degree of immunity, but haven\u2019t stopped the cases altogether.<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s worth noting that Trump\u2019s claim about the vice-presidential debate is false. The Justice Department made its filing a week ago \u2014 long before the debate \u2014 and it didn\u2019t unseal it; Chutkan did.<\/p>\n
Another central question when it comes to proving Trump knew better is pointing to all the times he was told his theories were false. This is something the Jan. 6 committee also focused on, keying in on testimony from former attorney general William P. Barr and former deputy attorney general Richard Donoghue, as well as former acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen and some Trump aides.<\/p>\n
But the filing adds significant new detail.<\/p>\n
It says then-Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel cited to Trump a comment from Michigan state House Speaker Lee Chatfield (R) calling claims about voting machines in Antrim County, Mich., \u201cf\u2014ing nuts.\u201d<\/p>\n
It says the leader of the Michigan state Senate, Mike Shirkey (R), told Trump he hadn\u2019t lost because of fraud but because he under-performed other Republicans and lost educated women. It adds that Shirkey \u201ccould tell by the defendant\u2019s body language that he was not happy to hear\u201d this.<\/p>\n
The filing also lays out many details about Pence\u2019s handling of the claims, making clear he consistently cast doubt on them \u2014 including in Trump\u2019s presence. Many of the quotes are from Pence\u2019s recent book, but the filing says Pence also urged Trump as early as Nov. 12: \u201cdon\u2019t concede but recognize process is over.\u201d<\/p>\n
As notably, the filing makes clear that Trump\u2019s campaign repeatedly failed to pony up evidence to Republicans it sought to recruit \u2014 then-Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) and then-Arizona state House Speaker Rusty Bowers (R).<\/p>\n
By Dec. 8, longtime Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller allegedly wrote a telling email.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen our research and campaign legal team can\u2019t back up any of the claims made by our Elite Strike Force Legal Team, you can see why we\u2019re 0-32 on our cases,\u201d Miller allegedly said. \u201cI\u2019ll obviously hustle to help on all fronts, but it\u2019s tough to own any of this when it\u2019s all just conspiracy s\u2014 beamed down from the mothership.\u201d<\/p>\n
The quote was cited last year in Trump\u2019s indictment, but without attribution. Now we learn it allegedly came from one of his closest aides \u2014 then and now.<\/p>\n
In a filing full of juicy quotes, perhaps one ties it all together. It\u2019s from Trump himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter if you won or lost the election,\u201d Trump allegedly told family members and others aboard Marine One. \u201cYou still have to fight like hell.\u201d<\/p>\n
The filing says the comment was overheard by the same aide who brought Trump news of Pence being moved to a secure location.<\/p>\n
Trump allegedly echoed the comment when one of his election lawyers told him his claims would not hold up in court, telling them \u201cThe details don\u2019t matter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump has offered conflicting comments about whether he actually lost the 2020 election. He mostly says it was stolen, but he\u2019ll sometimes talk about it as an actual loss \u2014 including recently. This could certainly be read as further proof that the evidence didn\u2019t really matter to him. And that could help prosecutors prove corruption.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
We just got the most extensive new detail in years about former president Donald Trump\u2019s plot to overturn the 2020 election, in the form of a much-anticipated filing from special counsel Jack Smith. The 165-page, partially redacted filing, which was unsealed by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, lays out the evidence Smith\u2019s team would like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":10524,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}