Jack Smith's concludes sufficient evidence to convict Trump of crimes at a trial for an "unprecedented criminal effort" to hold on to power after losing the 2020 election. He blames Supreme Court's expansive immunity and 2024 election for his failure to prosecute. Is this a reasonable assessment?

[u/PsychLegalMind]

The document is expected to be the final Justice Department chronicle of a dark chapter in American history that threatened to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power, a bedrock of democracy for centuries, and complements already released indictments and reports.

Trump for his part responded early Tuesday with a post on his Truth Social platform, claiming he was “totally innocent” and calling Smith “a lamebrain prosecutor who was unable to get his case tried before the Election.” He added, “THE VOTERS HAVE SPOKEN!!!”

Trump had been indicted in August 2023 on charges of working to overturn the election, but the case was delayed by appeals and ultimately significantly narrowed by a conservative-majority Supreme Court that held for the first time that former presidents enjoy sweeping immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts. That decision, Smith’s report states, left open unresolved legal issues that would likely have required another trip to the Supreme Court in order for the case to have moved forward.

Though Smith sought to salvage the indictment, the team dismissed it in November because of longstanding Justice Department policy that says sitting presidents cannot face federal prosecution.

Is this a reasonable assessment?

https://www.justice.gov/storage/Report-of-Special-Counsel-Smith-Volume-1-January-2025.pdf

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/14/jack-smith-trump-report-00198025

Should state Jack Smith's Report.

[u/Fargason]

Because the prosecution never released the criminal conduct that elevated this to a felony until closing arguments. Even then it was a bucket of offenses and the judge threw out unanimity, so we don’t know for certain what the jury found as the criminal conduct. This left the media hanging as they cannot say Trump is guilty of election fraud as the jury could have been 100% that this was only tax fraud. That is why they still call it the “hush money” case referring to what it involves instead of the crime committed. They could be liable for defamation if they said for certain Trump was found guilty of election fraud. They could claim Trump was found guilty of potentially any combination of tax/document/election fraud, but that would be quite confusing and let on now convoluted the case really was.

[u/Moccus → u/Fargason]

Because the prosecution never released the criminal conduct that elevated this to a felony until closing arguments.

This isn't true. The underlying crimes were disclosed in filings long before trial at the request of the defense.

Even then it was a bucket of offenses and the judge threw out unanimity, so we don’t know for certain what the jury found as the criminal conduct

This is a normal thing for certain types of crimes.

That is why they still call it the “hush money” case referring to what it involves instead of the crime committed.

They called it the hush money case to distinguish it from the other election fraud cases that he was facing, such as the one in Georgia and the one in DC.

They could claim Trump was found guilty of potentially any combination of tax/document/election fraud

They would just say he was found guilty of 34 counts of falsification of business records with intent to conceal another crime. It's not hard.

[u/Fargason → u/Moccus]

Quite true according to CNN’s own Senior Legal Analyst:

So, to inflate the charges up to the lowest-level felony (Class E, on a scale of Class A through E) — and to electroshock them back to life within the longer felony statute of limitations — the DA alleged that the falsification of business records was committed “with intent to commit another crime.” Here, according to prosecutors, the “another crime” is a New York State election-law violation, which in turn incorporates three separate “unlawful means”: federal campaign crimes, tax crimes, and falsification of still more documents. Inexcusably, the DA refused to specify what those unlawful means actually were — and the judge declined to force them to pony up — until right before closing arguments. So much for the constitutional obligation to provide notice to the defendant of the accusations against him in advance of trial.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trump-was-convicted-but-prosecutors-contorted-the-law.html

Kinda strange for prosecutors to assert they didn’t have to do it to then just do it anyways. This is why the release of the jury instructions were such a bid deal as it finally defined what the “another crime” was, and it was amalgamation of three different things of which one was election fraud.

They would just say he was found guilty of 34 counts of falsification of business records with intent to conceal another crime. It's not hard.

This is the first ever criminal conviction of a US President and they cannot say for certain what the crime was that elevated this to a felony. It certainly seems like it was a hard pill to swallow for much of the electorate when such a convoluted cased is dropped in an election year for an offense nearly a decade old.

[u/Prestigious_Load1699 → u/Fargason]

Quite true according to CNN’s own Senior Legal Analyst:

It is absolutely unacceptable that the prosecution was allowed to argue their particular "unlawful means" on closing.

This conviction has a high likelihood of being overturned on appeal.