Trump “resorted to crime” to overturn 2020 result

Donald Trump “resorted to crime” to overturn his 2020 election loss, prosecutors allege in a new court filing that argues the former president is not immune from charges.

Special Counsel Jack Smith, the prosecutor tasked with leading the election interference case against Trump, filed the filing, which was released publicly on Wednesday.

The filing challenges Trump's claim that he is protected by a landmark Supreme Court ruling this summer that grants broad immunity from prosecution for official actions while in office.

Since there will be no trial before Trump, a Republican, vies for the White House with his Democratic rival Kamala Harris in next month's election, the 165-page court document could be the last chance for prosecutors to lay out their case.

In the filing Wednesday, prosecutors allege that Trump did not always act in an official capacity and instead engaged in “private criminal efforts” to overturn the 2020 results.

The document is an attempt by prosecutors to advance the criminal case against Trump after the Supreme Court ruling in July.

This led prosecutors to narrow the scope of their charges. That's because the ruling did not provide immunity from unofficial actions, leading prosecutors to argue that some of his alleged efforts to overturn the election had to do with his campaign and his life as a private citizen while Trump may still be in office office was.

The court should “determine that the defendant must stand trial for his private crimes like any other citizen,” Mr. Smith wrote in the new filing.

The case has been frequently delayed since the Justice Department filed charges more than a year ago against Trump, who has denied wrongdoing and sought to illegally block the certification of President Joe Biden's victory.

The filing details several instances in which Trump's vice president, Mike Pence, expressed doubts about his boss's election fraud claims and tried to persuade him to accept that he had lost the election.

In the court document, prosecutors say Trump was not upset when he learned that his vice president had been moved to a safe location when rioters stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021. “So what?” he reportedly said when informed about the scenes.

Pence later opened up about his dispute with Trump after the storming of Congress, when some rioters chanted “Hang Mike Pence” because the vice president refused to obstruct the certification of the election results.

Trump's lawyers fought to keep the latest filing secret, with campaign spokesman Steven Cheung calling it “full of falsehoods” and “unconstitutional.”

In a post on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday, Trump called it a “hit job” and said it “should not have been published right before the election.”

He accused prosecutors of “outrageous” misconduct.

The filing offers new evidence and offers the clearest overview yet of how prosecutors would seek to present their case against Trump in court.

It claims that he had always planned to declare victory regardless of the result, and that he had laid the groundwork for this long before Election Day. He is also accused of knowingly spreading false claims about the vote that he himself considered “crazy.”

Mr. Smith also provides several new details about the Trump campaign's alleged role in sowing chaos in battleground states where large numbers of mail-in ballots were counted in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

When a large number of ballots appeared to be going out for Biden in the Democratic stronghold of Detroit, Michigan, a Trump campaign official reportedly told his colleague to “find a reason” that there was something wrong with the ballots to “help him.” “To give options for file litigation”.

The filing also alleges that Trump and his allies, including attorney Rudy Giuliani, attempted to “take advantage of the violence and chaos at the Capitol” on January 6, 2021, to delay the certification of the election. They allegedly did this by calling senators and leaving voicemails urging them to object to state elections.

Trump said Wednesday that the case would end in his “complete victory.” A trial date has not been set.