The report, which said the special counsel’s office stood “fully behind” the merits of the prosecution, amounted to an extraordinary rebuke of the president-elect.
Jack Smith, the special counsel who indicted President-elect Donald J. Trump on charges of illegally seeking to cling to power after losing the 2020 election, said in a final report released early Tuesday that the evidence would have been sufficient to convict Mr. Trump in a trial, had his 2024 election victory not made it impossible for the prosecution to continue.
“The department’s view that the Constitution prohibits the continued indictment and prosecution of a president is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the government’s proof or the merits of the prosecution, which the office stands fully behind,” Mr. Smith wrote.
He continued: “Indeed, but for Mr. Trump’s election and imminent return to the presidency, the office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial.”
In his report, Mr. Smith took Mr. Trump to task not only for his efforts to reverse the results of a free and fair election, but also for consistently encouraging “violence against his perceived opponents” throughout the chaotic weeks between Election Day and Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, injuring more than 140 police officers.
Mr. Smith laid the attack on the Capitol squarely at Mr. Trump’s feet, quoting from the evidence in several criminal cases of people charged with taking part in the riot who made clear that they believed they were acting on Mr. Trump’s behalf.
In several lengthy footnotes, Mr. Smith explored the trauma experienced by Capitol Police officers who were attacked during the riot, including “shell-shock” and the inability to move. He quoted one officer who described the effort to keep rioters from getting to congressional staff members inside the Capitol; the officer said that for them, that could have meant “possible death. People are getting killed, maimed.”
Another officer recalled rioters trying to beat up the police “with such ferocity” and wondering: “What are they going to do to somebody else that’s in here, that’s maybe a staff or a congressman or somebody with the press? How are — what are they going to do to them? You know, like, we can take the beating. And I don’t know if these other people can take the beating, too.”
The report’s description of this violence was all the more remarkable given that Mr. Trump has repeatedly vowed to pardon many Jan. 6 defendants, possibly including ones who assaulted police officers on that day.
The report also gave a sense of the scope of Mr. Smith’s inquiry, noting that his team had interviewed more than 250 people and obtained grand jury testimony from more than 55 witnesses. Mr. Smith said the work of the House committee that examined the Capitol attack and predated his investigation was only “a small part of the office’s investigative record.”
The report contained an extensive justification for pursuing the prosecution, given what Mr. Smith called Mr. Trump’s “unprecedented criminal effort to overturn the legitimate results of the election in order to retain power.”
It detailed numerous challenges that the investigation faced, from legal fights over executive privilege and presidential immunity to Mr. Trump’s “ability and willingness to use his influence and following on social media to target witnesses, courts and department employees, which required the office to engage in time-consuming litigation to protect witnesses from threats and harassment.”
One of the most serious obstacles prosecutors faced, Mr. Smith wrote, was that the attempts to hold Mr. Trump accountable both for mishandling classified documents and for trying to subvert the 2020 election took place while he was seeking the White House again.
“Mr. Trump’s announcement of his candidacy for president while two federal criminal investigations were ongoing presented an unprecedented challenge for the Department of Justice and the courts,” Mr. Smith wrote. “Given the timing and circumstances of the special counsel’s appointment and the office’s work, it was unavoidable that the regular processes of the criminal law and the judicial system would run parallel to the election campaign.”