By Andrew Goudsward and Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith concluded that Donald Trump engaged in an “unprecedented criminal effort” to stay in power after losing the 2020 election, but failed to bring in the case of the attempted victory in the November election of the president-elect. , according to a report published on Tuesday.

The report details Smith’s decision to bring a four-count indictment against Trump, accusing him of conspiring to block the collection and certification of votes after his defeat by Democratic President Joe Biden in 2020.

It concluded that the evidence was sufficient to convict Trump at trial, but that his imminent return to the presidency, set for January 20, made that impossible.

Smith, who has faced relentless criticism from Trump, also defended his investigation and the prosecutors who worked on it.

“The claim from Mr. Trump that my decisions as a prosecutor were influenced or directed by the Biden administration or other political actors is, in a word, ridiculous,” Smith wrote in a letter detailing his report.

After the release, Trump, in a post on his Truth Social site, called Smith a “lamebrain prosecutor who didn’t try his case before the election.”

Trump’s lawyers, in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland made public by the Justice Department, called the report a “politically-motivated attack” and said its release before Trump’s return to White House harms the president’s transition.

Much of the evidence cited in the report has previously been made public.

But it includes some new details, such as prosecutors considering charging Trump with inciting an attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 under the US law known as the Insurrection Act.

Prosecutors ultimately concluded that such a charge carried legal risks and there was insufficient evidence that Trump intended for the “full scope” of violence during the riots, a failed attempt at a mobs of his supporters to prevent Congress from certifying the 2020 elections.

The indictment accuses Trump of conspiring to block election certification, deceiving the United States of accurate election results and denying US voters their voting rights.

Smith’s office determined that charges may be warranted against some of the co-conspirators accused of helping Trump carry out the plan, but the report said prosecutors had no final conclusions.

Several of Trump’s former lawyers were previously identified as co-conspirators targeted in the indictment.

The second section of the report details Smith’s case accusing Trump of illegally retaining sensitive national security documents after leaving the White House in 2021.

The Justice Department has vowed not to make the case public while legal action continues against two Trump associates charged in the case.

Smith, who left the Justice Department last week, dropped two charges against Trump after he won last year’s election, citing a longstanding Justice Department policy against prosecuting a sitting president. It didn’t even come to trial.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges. Often attacking Smith as “crazy,” Trump characterized the charges as politically motivated attempts to harm his campaign and political activities.

Trump and his two former co-defendants in the classified documents case sought to block the release of the report, days before Trump is scheduled to return to office on January 20. The courts rejected their demands to prevent all publication.

US District Judge Aileen Cannon, who is presiding over the documents case, has ordered the Justice Department to temporarily halt plans to allow some senior members of Congress to privately review the documents section of the report.

Prosecutors have provided a detailed overview of their case against Trump in previous court filings. A congressional panel in 2022 published its own 700-page account of Trump’s actions after the 2020 election.

Both investigations concluded that Trump spread false claims of widespread voter fraud after the 2020 election and pressured state lawmakers not to certify the vote, and ultimately, also sought to use fraudulent groups of voters who pledged to vote for Trump, in states that Biden actually won, in an attempt to prevent Congress from certifying his victory Biden.

The effort culminated in the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed Congress in a failed attempt to prevent lawmakers from certifying the vote.

Smith’s case faced legal hurdles even before Trump’s election victory. It has been stalled for months as Trump presses his claim that he cannot be impeached for official actions taken as president.

The conservative majority of the Supreme Court largely sided with him, giving former presidents broad immunity from criminal prosecution.