US prosecutors lay out new evidence in Trump 2020 election case
Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team is arguing that the ex-US president is not entitled to immunity for a ‘private’ scheme to stay in office
Donald Trump laid the groundwork to try to overturn the 2020 election even before he lost, knowingly pushed false claims of voter fraud and “resorted to crimes” in his failed bid to cling to power, according to a newly unsealed court filing from prosecutors that offers new evidence from the landmark criminal case against the former president.
The filing from special counsel Jack Smith’s team offers the most comprehensive view to date of what prosecutors intend to prove if the case charging Trump with conspiring to overturn the election reaches trial.
Though a months-long congressional investigation and the indictment itself have chronicled in stark detail Trump’s efforts to undo the election, the filing cites previously unknown accounts offered by Trump’s closest aides to paint a portrait of an “increasingly desperate” president who while losing his grip on the White House “used deceit to target every stage of the electoral process”.
“So what?” the filing quotes Trump as telling an aide after being advised that his vice-president, Mike Pence, had been rushed to a secure location after a crowd of violent Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 to try to prevent the counting of electoral votes.
“The details don’t matter,” Trump said, when told by an adviser that a lawyer who was mounting his legal challenges wouldn’t be able to prove the false allegations in court, the filing states.
