Special Counsel Says Trump Would Have Been Convicted for Efforts to Overturn 2020 Election

WASHINGTON—Special counsel Jack Smith defended his decision to bring charges against Donald Trump over his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss, writing in a report released early Tuesday that prosecutors believed they had enough evidence to convict him had they not been forced to drop the case after his re-election in November.

“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,” Smith wrote in the 174-page report, the release of which marks the end of an unprecedented chapter in U.S. history.

Smith dismissed the federal election-interference case and one alleging Trump unlawfully retained classified documents, citing longstanding Justice Department policy prohibiting the prosecution of a sitting president.

“While we were not able to bring the cases we charged to trial, I believe the fact that our team stood up for the rule of law matters,” Smith wrote in the report, which Attorney General Merrick Garland sent to Congress just before 1 a.m. Tuesday, shortly after a court order barring its disclosure expired. “The facts, as we uncovered them in our investigation and as set forth in my Report, matter,” Smith said.

Although many of the report’s details had been revealed previously, it represents the most comprehensive assessment of Smith’s decision to charge the former president. Its release days before Trump’s return to the White House further infuriated the president-elect, who repeatedly attacked the charges as politically motivated and has called for Smith to be prosecuted.

In a pair of social-media posts, Trump blasted the report’s release at 1 a.m. and said it was filled with “fake findings.” He called Smith a “lamebrain prosecutor who was unable to get his case tried before the Election.”

Smith’s findings came out hours after the Justice Department released the report of another special counsel, David Weiss, who prosecuted President Biden’s son, Hunter, on tax and gun charges. Weiss blasted the president, who last month pardoned Hunter, for claiming his son was unfairly targeted.

Smith resigned from the Justice Department last week. After days of legal wrangling, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon allowed the Justice Department to release the election-interference portion of Smith’s report. But she barred officials from immediately making public a second volume dealing with the classified-documents case, which she oversaw, as criminal proceedings against Trump’s two co-defendants are under way.

Smith’s report pushed back on Trump’s repeated claims that the investigations were political.

“Throughout my service as Special Counsel, seeking to influence the election one way or the other, or seeking to interfere in its outcome, played no role in our work,” he wrote.

Smith’s election-interference case, originally filed in August 2023, was arguably the most ambitious of the Trump prosecutions. His team outlined sweeping allegations that Trump pulled the levers of power to pressure state officials, and then-Vice President Mike Pence and the Justice Department, to advance baseless claims of election fraud and help him remain in power, in a chain of events that culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters.

Prosecutors only charged Trump, calling him the “the head of the criminal conspiracies and their intended beneficiary,” but Smith said his team had enough evidence to charge others as well. The report didn’t explain why prosecutors chose not to.

The Supreme Court’s July decision that presidents enjoy sweeping immunity for actions they take while in office dealt a significant blow to the special counsel’s work, but Smith held his ground with a reworked indictment that left in place the same charges Trump originally faced. It landed at the height of campaign season, fueling Trump’s criticism of Smith, whom he vowed to fire “within two seconds” of taking office.

Smith acknowledged he was in uncharted territory in prosecuting a former president while he sought re-election.

“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,” Smith wrote.

He said his office weighed bringing other charges against Trump, including incitement to insurrection, but declined to do so in the face of legal uncertainty. The special counsel’s team ultimately determined that its other allegations were sufficient.

Trump’s nominees to lead the Justice Department have been openly critical of Smith’s work and have suggested they would investigate members of his team. Some of those prosecutors have sought legal guidance from friends and private lawyers in anticipation of how the next Trump administration could make their lives difficult whether or not they leave the government, from potential harassment to investigations that could hurt them legally and financially for years, The Wall Street Journal has reported.

C. Ryan Barber contributed to this article.

Write to Sadie Gurman at sadie.gurman@wsj.com