“The lapse of time does not change guilt to innocence; it does not change murder into innocent pastime, nor treason into patriotism! Civilization can find no apology for such guilt and depravity.”
Below are excerpts from the DOJ filing from Jack Smith, laying out the non-immunity charges against Trump and co-conspirators, charges for criminal acts they committed as part of the Trump campaign (not as part of his administration).
“Working with a team of private co-conspirators, the defendant acted as a candidate when he pursued multiple criminal means to disrupt, through fraud and deceit, the government function by which votes are collected and counted—a function in which the defendant, as President, had no official role. “
“When the defendant lost the 2020 presidential election, he resorted to crimes to try to stay in office. With private co-conspirators, the defendant launched a series of increasingly desperate plans to overturn the legitimate election results in seven states that he had lost—Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin (the ‘targeted states’).”
“His efforts included lying to state officials in order to induce them to ignore true vote counts; manufacturing fraudulent electoral votes…; attempting to enlist …Pence, in his role as President of the Senate, to obstruct Congress’s certification of the election by using the defendant’s fraudulent electoral votes; and when all else had failed, on January 6, 2021, directing an angry crowd of supporters to the United States Capitol to obstruct the congressional certification.”
The legal brief portrays Pence as admitting that the GOP was dying in 2016 – and Pence trying to console 45 is hilariously pathetic:
“A call between [45] and Pence on November 7, the day that media organization began to project Biden as the winner of the election. Pence ‘tried to encourage’ the defendant ‘as a friend,’ reminding him, ‘you took a dying political party and gave it a new lease on life.'”
“A private lunch on November 16 in which Pence tried to encourage [45] to accept the results of the election and run again in 2024, to which the defendant responded, ‘I don’t know, 2024 is so far off.'”
“A December 21 private lunch in which Pence ‘encouraged’ [45] ‘not to look at the election ‘as a loss – just an intermission.'”
Outside of Pence,
“At one point long after [45] had begun spreading false fraud claims … a White House staffer traveling with [45], overheard him tell family members that, ‘it doesn’t matter if you won or lose the election. You still have to fight like hell.'”
And this easy burn:
“[45] and his co-conspirators also demonstrated their deliberate disregard for the truth – and thus their knowledge of falsity – when they repeatedly changed the numbers in their baseless fraud allegations from day to day.”
“Shortly after election day, [45] began to target the electoral process at the state level by attempting to deceive state officials and to prevent or overturn the legitimate ascertainment and appointment of Biden’s electors.”
“As President, the defendant had no official responsibilities related to the states’ administration of the election or the appointment of their electors, and instead contacted state officials in his capacity as a candidate. Tellingly, the defendant contacted only state officials who were in his political party and were his political supporters, and only in states he had lost.”
Sounds like concepts of a plan:
“In a meeting the day after the hearing, when state legislators pressed [Giuliani] and [Steve Bannon] for evidence to support their claims, [Giuliani] conceded that even on that late date,
‘we don’t have the evidence, but we have lots of theories.’
“When the legislators were frustrated that [Giuliani] had no support for his claims and asked him tough questions, [Giuliani] expressed surprise at the way he was being treated, stating ‘Man, I thought were were all Republicans.'”
“At the hearing, [Giuliani] arranged for co-conspirators and agents to repeat the false dead voter claim. The claim was so patently false that everyone around the defendant knew it:
“…during the hearing, Chief of Staff [Mark Meadows] and ]Eric Herschmann] exchanged text messages on their personal phones confirming that a Campaign attorney, P22 had verified that [Giuliani] claim of more than 10,000 dead voters was false and that the actual number was around 12 and could not be outcome-determinative.”
“During the subcommittee hearing, the conspirators also set in motion a sensational and dangerous lie about election workers at State Farm Arena that would result in the defendant’s supporters harassing and threatening those workers.”
“[Chris Carr] tried to steer the call to an end by thanking [45] and telling him that he had voted for him twice and appreciated [45], to which [45] responded,
“Yeah, I did a hell of a job, didn’t I?”
You can almost hear 45 repeating the end of Raging Bull:
“Go get ’em, champ. I’m da boss, I’m da boss, I’m da boss…”
“…[Jackie Pick] – who spoke with [45] on a daily basis and had informed him on multiple occasions that various fraud claims were false – wrote,
‘When our research and campaign legal team can’t back up any of the claims made by our Elite Strike Force Legal Team, you can see why we’re 0-32 on our cases.
‘I’ll obviously hustle to help on all fronts, but it’s tough to own any of this when it’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.'”
“[Giuliani] further perpetuated the false State farm Arena claim when he appeared at another hearing, this one before the Georgia House of Representatives’ Government Affairs Committee. During it, he displayed some of the same footage as had been used in the December 3 hearing that had been debunked in the interim by Georgia officials, and nonetheless claimed that it showed ‘voter fraud right in front of people’s eyes.'”
“He then named two election workers – P29 and her mother, P30 – and baselessly accused them of ‘quite obviously surreptitiously passing around USB ports as if they are vials or heroin or cocaine,’ and suggested that they were criminals whose ‘places of work, their homes, should have been searched for evidence of ballots, for evidence of USB ports, for evidence of voter fraud.’
“As these false claims about P30 and P29 spread, the women were barraged by racist death threats.”
“In the years since, they have spoken about the effect of [45] and co-conspirators’ lies about them; as P30 explained in an interview with congressional Investigators,
‘When someone as powerful as the President of the United States eggs on a mob, that mob will come. They came for us with their cruelty, their threats, their racism, and their hats. They haven’t stopped even today.’
“Indeed, to this day, the defendant has never stopped falsely attacking P30 and P29. Although none of the false claims against them were ever corroborated, [45] has continued to levy them on social media, including when [45] attacked P30 in January 2023 just after her testimony to congressional investigators was made public.”
“Throughout the post-election period, the defendant used Twitter to publicly attack Georgia Governor [Brian Kemp] with particular aggression. In the thirty-five days between November 30, 2020, and January 3, 2021, the defendant tweeted critically about [Kemp] by name or title, more than forty times.”
“45 tweeted about [Kemp]:
“His poll numbers have dropped like a rock. he is finished as governor!”
Kemp won re-election in 2022.
“He then offered [45] a link to a video disproving the claim, to which [45] responded,
‘I don’t care about a link, I don’t need it. I have a much, I have a much better link.’
“At one point, [45] became frustrated after [they] explained repeatedly that his claims had been investigated and were not true and stated,
‘And you’re gonna to find that they are – which is totally illegal – it’s, it’s, it’s more illegal for you than it is for them because, you know what they did and you’re not reporting it. That’s a criminal, you know, that’s a criminal offense. And you know, you can’t let that happen. That’s a big risk to you and to [Ryan Germany] your lawyer. That’s a big risk.”
It’s no surprise – but still disgusting – that we learn that 45 doesn’t respect a woman’s telling him she won’t participate in a meeting at the advice of counsel:
“On Nov 20 … [45] also asked [Ronna McDaniel] to participate in the meeting, but [McDaniel] told him that she had consulted with her attorney and that she could not be involved in a meeting with legislators because it could be perceived as lobbying.
“….Over the course of the meeting, [45] dialed in… [McDaniel] – despite her request not to participate…”
“…[45] raised various fraud claims, including that he had lost Michigan because of fraud or misconduct in Wayne County, where Detroit is located.
“[Mike Shirkey] corrected [45] and told him that he had lost primarily because in two routinely Republican counties, the defendant had underperformed with educated females, and if he had received the same number of votes there as the two winning local sheriffs, he likely would have won Michigan.
“Notably, [45] only raised fraud claims to the extent that they affected the outcome in his own race, not those for other offices in Michigan.
“On Nov 21, [45] …tweeted …’We will show massive and unprecedented fraud!’ Days later, [45]’s Campaign declined to request a state-wide recount in Michigan, for which it would have had to pay unless the recount succeeded in changing the outcome of the election.”
“[Lee Chatfield] stated:
‘But I love our republic, too. I can’t fathom risking our norms, traditions and institutions to pass a resolution retroactively changing the electors for Trump, simply because some think there may have been enough widespread fraud to give him a win. That’s unprecedented for good reason. And that’s why there is not enough support in the House to case a new slate of electors. I fear we’d lose our country forever.’“On Jan 3, [45]’s Campaign publicly posted [Shirkey’s] phone number, and attempted to post [Chatfield’s] (but erred by one digit), in a Tweet… [Shirkey] received four thousand text messages in two hours, forcing him to get a new phone number.
“[Giuliani] … called [Justin Riemer] and left a threatening voicemail, stating,
‘I really do need an explanation for what you said today because if there isn’t a good one, you should resign. Got it? So call me or I’ll call the boss and get you to resign. Call me. It’d be better for you if you do.’
“[Giuliani] also contacted RNC Chairwoman [McDaniel] to demand that [Riemer] be fired, and thereafter [Riemer] was relieved of his duties as RNC Chief Counsel.”
“On November 29, a recount that [45]’s Campaign had petitioned and paid for confirmed that Biden had won in Wisconsin – and increased [45]’s margin of defeat.”
“On November 17, [Chris Krebs] the director of DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA),, publicly tweeted that a group of private election security experts concluded that claims of computer-based election fraud,
‘either have been unsubstantiated or are technically incoherent.’
“In service of a new plan – to enlist Pence to use his role to fraudulently alter the election results at the January 6 certification proceeding – the defendant and his co-conspirators again used deceit. They lied to Pence, telling him that there was substantial election fraud and concealing their orchestration of the plan to manufacture fraudulent elector slates, as well as their intention to use the fake slates to attempt to obstruct the congressional certification.
“And they lied to the public, falsely claiming that Pence had the authority during the certification proceeding to reject electoral votes, send them back to the states, or overturn the election – and that Pence agreed he had these boundless powers.
“With these lies, [45] created the tinderbox that he purposely ignited on January 6.
“On December 25, when Pence called [45] to wish him a Merry Christmas, [45] raised the certification and told Pence that he had discretion in his role as President of the Senate. Pence emphatically responded, ‘You know I don’t think I have the authority to change the outcome.’
“On January 1, [45] called Pence to berate him…. When Pence explained, as he had before, that he did not believe he had the power under the Constitution to decide which votes to accept, [45] told him that ‘hundreds of thousands’ of people ‘are gonna hate your guts’ and ‘people are gonna think you’re stupid,’ and berated him pointedly, ‘You’re too honest.’
“At the Ellipse Campaign rally [on January 6] … [Giuliani] sought to cloak the conspiracies in an air of legitimacy, assuring [45]’s supporters that ‘every single thing that has been outlined as the plan for today is perfectly legal’ … then asserted that Pence could ‘decide on the validity of these crooked ballots’ and told the crowd, ‘let’s have trial by combat.’
“When [45] took the stage at the Ellipse rally to speak to the supporters who had gathered there at his urging, he knew that Pence had refused, once and for all, to use [45]’s fraudulent electors’ certificates. [45] also knew that he had only one last hope to prevent Biden’s certification as President: the large and angry crowd standing in front of him. So for more than an hour, [45] delivered a speech designed to inflame his supporters and motivate them to march to the Capitol.
“He made clear that he expected his supporters to take action, telling them regarding his loss of the election that ‘We’re not going to let that happen,; calling on them to ‘fight’ and to ‘take back’ their country through strength, while suggesting that legal means were antiquated or insufficient to remedy the purported fraud, because ‘when you catch somebody in a fraud, you’re allowed to go by very different rules.’
“Throughout the speech – from as early as about fifteen minutes into it and twice in its final lines – [45] directed his supporters to go to the Capitol and suggested that he would go with them.”
Then Jack Smith/DOJ taunts SCOTUS by writing basically: we’ve taken out all the stuff you claimed he’s immune from, and left in the rest that you had no objection to.
“The superseding indictment omits those allegations, and the Supreme Court did not find any other conduct alleged in the original indictment implicated ‘conclusive and preclusive’ presidential authority.
“At its core, [45]’s scheme was a private one; he extensively used private actors and his Campaign infrastructure to attempt to overturn the election results and operated in a private capacity as a candidate for office.
“[45] sought to encroach on powers specifically assigned by the Constitution to other branches, to advance his own self-interest and perpetuate himself in power, contrary to the will of the people. As such, applying a criminal prohibition to [45’s] conduct would not pose any danger of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch…
“History confirms that presidents have never understood their wide-ranging duties to encompass any direct role in the function of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of a presidential election.
“Both men had something to gain by winning re-election, making more notable the persistence of Pence’s suggestions on how to accept the results of the election without losing face.
“Merely because the President is speaking to the public—even on ‘matters of public concern’—does not automatically render the communication official.”
“Tweets:
One of the tools the defendant used for partisan political advantage—and in furtherance of the charged conspiracies—was his personal Twitter account. He used his Twitter account to undermine public confidence in the electoral system, spread false claims of election fraud, attack those speaking the truth that the defendant had lost the election, exhort supporters to travel to Washington for the certification proceeding, and marshal his supporters’ anger at, and pressure on,” Pence.
If Trump could read, this and the Tina Peters sentencing, should be required reading during the rest of his life behind bars.
[See Newsweek or Just Security for explanations of the anonymized names.]
