PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — In Special Counsel Jack Smith's final report to Congress, he says he and his team stood up for the rule of law, and he stands behind his decision to bring criminal charges against Trump. He says President-elect Donald Trump would have been convicted if he hadn't won the election.
Trump maintains his innocence, posting on social media: "The voters have spoken."
National correspondent Steven Portnoy joined KYW Newsradio's Ian Bush and Carole MacKenzie live Tuesday morning
Carole MacKenzie: Steven, some pretty strong allegations against the former and future president in this report. What are the main takeaways from Jack Smith's parting shot?
Steven Portnoy: This is Volume One of Jack Smith's report, turned in last week just before Smith resigned as special counsel. It lays out the election interference case that he would have made against the president-elect at trial, but for the fact that Donald Trump has been elected to return to the White House next Monday.
Smith says in his report that Trump made up claims about election fraud to pressure state officials to reject lawful votes. He says that Trump was not looking to lawyers for advice, but instead for legal cover. The report calls the lawyers who assisted Trump co-conspirators.
And ultimately it says that Trump encouraged an angry mob to storm the Capitol. It points to his repeated praise of capital rioters as patriots and hostages.
And Smith, in a letter accompanying this report, says that the idea that he was influenced by the Biden White House is in a word, laughable.
But the Justice Department also includes something of a response from Trump's attorneys—two men, by the way, who would, if they're confirmed, be the leaders of the Justice Department underneath Pam Bondi, if she's confirmed as attorney general.
And these lawyers say that this was a politically motivated attack and a bad faith crusade against Trump, essentially inspired by, if not directed by the Biden White House.
Trump responds to this in a post on social media at 1:41 a.m. Tuesday, saying, "The voters have spoken."
Ian Bush: And Steven, so this what goes in the record, but what is the point of it being released?
Well, I think you hit it, Ian, and that's for history. Special counsels operate under Justice Department regulations that require them, once they finish their investigations, to turn in a report that then is transmitted to Congress and potentially—and in this case, it was—to the American people.
Volume Two gets into the questions of the classified documents case, and that will be withheld until the two Trump co-defendants have their cases finalized in some way or another.
There's a great deal of expectation here that Donald Trump is going to pardon his personal valet and his property manager at Mar-a-Lago who remain under indictment.
Trump escapes that because he's been elected president, but the question is: Will that second volume ever see the light of day?
It's possible it won't, especially if Trump's nominees get confirmed. They could quash it, and we may never see it, but Volume One is now out in the public record for history.