WASHINGTON — Former president Donald Trump As he sought to overturn his 2020 election defeat, he was running “essentially” as a personal candidate for office rather than as president of the United States, special counsel Jack Smith’s team revealed new details of the master plan in a filing Wednesday. Allegation that Trump interfered in the federal election.
The giving It claims it knew Trump’s claims about the 2020 election were false, while Smith’s team claims Trump didn’t believe his lies, but rather spread them as part of a larger scheme to stay in power.
When the officers were brutally attacked in the Capitol on Jan. 6, Smith’s team says Trump was on Twitter, according to an analysis by an FBI expert who was among those exposed in the new documents. Smith’s team says a future trial will include testimony from an FBI forensics expert.
“Phone activity logs show that the defendant used his phone consistently throughout the day after returning from his Ellipse speech, specifically using the Twitter app,” Smith’s team wrote.
The special counsel’s office also defended the inclusion of former Vice President Mike Pence’s testimony, saying some of the discussions between Trump and Pence were not in their official roles, but rather “in their personal capacity as a running mate.”
Smith’s team said Pence “gradually and gently tried to convince the defendant to accept the legitimate results of the election, even if it meant they lost.”
In one of the discussions held at the dinner on November 12, Pence, who was mentioned in the application, presented a “face-saving option” for Trump, telling him to “don’t give up on your side, but accept that the process is over.”
The document also says that when Trump was told he had to be rushed to safety after the president attacked him on Jan. 6 for refusing to help overturn the election, Trump responded with two words: “So what?”
Another piece of evidence Smith’s team plans to present is testimony from an unnamed presidential aide who overheard Trump’s remarks to family members aboard Marine One after the 2020 election.
“It doesn’t matter if you win or lose the election. You still have to fight like hell,” Trump allegedly said.
The document also details an earlier allegation by Smith’s team that a member of Trump’s campaign incited riots at Detroit’s TCF Center, where a pro-Trump mob tried to stop vote counting in America’s most Black city in November. 4, 2020, the day after the election. According to the affidavit, an unnamed campaign staffer texted a colleague, “Make them riot.” “Do it!!!”
A complaint is a response to a petition The Supreme Court ruled that Trump has immunity because of some of his actions as president, prosecutors could not use his official actions in their case. Smith’s team said the 2024 Republican presidential nominee “must be prosecuted for his personal crimes like any other citizen,” and a federal grand jury returned. superseding indictment In August, it brought Smith’s case against him into line with the Supreme Court’s ruling.
After his defeat, Trump “resorted to crimes to try to stay in office,” Smith’s team wrote in a filing Wednesday, adding that he “began an increasingly desperate series of plans to overturn legitimate election results in the seven states he won — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.”
“There’s nothing new there, nothing new, by the way,” Trump said in his first public speech since the address.
“They rigged the election. I didn’t rig the election,” Trump said Interview with NewsNation. “They should never have allowed the information to come out to the public. But they did it because they want to hurt you with the election. This is just interference in the election.”
Smith’s team reiterated that it knew Trump’s lies about the 2020 election were in fact lies and said it trusted its campaign staff and volunteers, including a campaign manager, deputy campaign manager, senior campaign adviser and campaign operative. out of the alleged scheme.
“Working with a team of private conspirators, the defendant acted as a candidate when he resorted to numerous criminal means to subvert the government’s vote collection and counting function through fraud and deception. The president had no official duties,” they write.
According to Smith’s team, Trump said the election night results could be wrong because it would take some time to count the mail-in ballots, which were expected to favor Joe Biden. According to Smith’s team, Trump told his advisers he would “simply declare victory before all the ballots are counted and the winner is determined” and began setting the stage by publicly telling his supporters he would lose if there was fraud.
Trump and his co-conspirators “willfully ignored the truth,” and Smith’s team said they intend to prove in court that they engaged in a pattern of fraud and “made up numbers out of thin air,” including an ever-changing number. Non-citizen voters claimed Trump’s team cast fraudulent ballots in Arizona.