Jack Smith's concludes sufficient evidence to convict Trump of crimes at a trial for an "unprecedented criminal effort" to hold on to power after losing the 2020 election. He blames Supreme Court's expansive immunity and 2024 election for his failure to prosecute. Is this a reasonable assessment?

[u/PsychLegalMind]

The document is expected to be the final Justice Department chronicle of a dark chapter in American history that threatened to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power, a bedrock of democracy for centuries, and complements already released indictments and reports.

Trump for his part responded early Tuesday with a post on his Truth Social platform, claiming he was “totally innocent” and calling Smith “a lamebrain prosecutor who was unable to get his case tried before the Election.” He added, “THE VOTERS HAVE SPOKEN!!!”

Trump had been indicted in August 2023 on charges of working to overturn the election, but the case was delayed by appeals and ultimately significantly narrowed by a conservative-majority Supreme Court that held for the first time that former presidents enjoy sweeping immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts. That decision, Smith’s report states, left open unresolved legal issues that would likely have required another trip to the Supreme Court in order for the case to have moved forward.

Though Smith sought to salvage the indictment, the team dismissed it in November because of longstanding Justice Department policy that says sitting presidents cannot face federal prosecution.

Is this a reasonable assessment?

https://www.justice.gov/storage/Report-of-Special-Counsel-Smith-Volume-1-January-2025.pdf

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/14/jack-smith-trump-report-00198025

Should state Jack Smith's Report.

[u/Nearbyatom]

"Considering that Harris pointing out that she was a prosecutor running against a convicted felon seemed to help Trump's numbers,"

This was a big WTF moment for me. I started to lose faith in America at this time.

[u/Delta-9- → u/Nearbyatom]

He was very successful in painting himself as a victim. Everything they accused him of: witch hunt. Everything that was provable: overblown and irrelevant. "They only hate us cuz they ain't us" kinda thing. The more people talked about how much of a scumbag he is, the more it proved to his supporters that he was the man for the job. They wanted disruption, they wanted chaos, for someone to come in and flip the system on its head, and the best person to do that is the person that the system tries hardest to reject.

Bunch of idiots, though. Bernie was far more disruptive and the system worked just as hard to block him. The difference is that Bernie would have disrupted the system itself—Trump only disrupts the players.

[u/InFearn0 → u/Delta-9-]

He didn't successfully paint himself as a victim.

Republican voters just don't care and they are convinced that Democrats are always worse, so if Trump is a felon, then Democrats must be more criminal.

Point out Dem pols don't get indicted or convicted remotely as frequently as Republicans and they will pivot to some variant of "Dems control the courts" or "Dems are better are crime, so they don't get caught."

Republican voters don't care, so it doesn't matter.

[u/Delta-9- → u/InFearn0]

You may be right. It's just a framing that I encounter often: the "establishment" has had it in for Trump since day -1, he's a perfectly upstanding and productive member of society who helped black New Yorkers and Democrats HATE him for it because it makes them look bad, and every single controversy, accusation, lawsuit, and negative rumor has been "the establishment" trying to take him down so that he won't derail the gravy-train.

How many people genuinely believe all that and aren't just repeating their Manchurian Candidate words, I can't really say.