Five key takeaways from Jack Smith’s report on alleged Trump election crimes

1. Trump did not cooperate fully

Smith laid out the challenges he faced during the investigation, including Trump’s assertion of executive privilege to try to block witnesses from providing evidence, which forced prosecutors into sealed court battles before the case was charged.

Another “significant challenge” was Trump’s “ability and willingness to use his influence and following on social media to target witnesses, courts, prosecutors”, which led prosecutors to seek a gag order to protect potential witnesses from harassment, Smith wrote.

2. Smith calls allegations of political interference ‘laughable’

Smith hit back at claims by the president-elect that he pursued the charges for political reasons.

“While I relied greatly on the counsel, judgment, and advice of our team, I want it to be clear that the ultimate decision to bring charges against Mr Trump was mine. It is a decision I stand behind fully,” wrote Smith, who resigned from the justice department on 10 January.

He added that “nobody within the Department of Justice ever sought to interfere with, or improperly influence, my prosecutorial decision making.

“And to all who know me well, 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, laughable,” Smith wrote.

3. Trump knew his allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 election were false

Smith wrote that Trump knew his allegations of fraud in the 2020 election were false – but he continued to make them anyway.

“Mr Trump’s false claims included dozens of specific claims regarding certain states, such as that large numbers of dead, non-resident, non-citizen, or otherwise ineligible voters had cast ballots, or that voting machines had changed votes for Mr Trump to votes against him. These claims were demonstrably and, in many cases, obviously false,” Smith said.

4. Smith believed Trump should be charged despite supreme court immunity ruling

Despite a supreme court ruling on presidential immunity, Smith wrote that he believed the charges he filed against Trump still held water.

He notes that his team was able to secure a superseding indictment from a grand jury after the top court handed down its ruling, which gave Trump immunity for official acts taken as president.

“The Supreme Court’s decision required the office to reanalyze the evidence it had collected. The original indictment alleged that Mr Trump, as the incumbent president, used all available tools and powers, both private and official, to overturn the legitimate results of the election despite notice, including from official advisors, that his fraud claims were false and he had lost the election.

“Given the supreme court’s ruling, the office reevaluated the evidence and assessed whether Mr Trump’s non-immune conduct – either his private conduct as a candidate or official conduct for which the office could rebut the presumption of immunity – violated federal 33 laws. The office concluded that it did. After doing so, the office sought, and a new grand jury issued, a superseding indictment with identical charges but based only on conduct that was not immune because it was either unofficial or any presumptive immunity could be rebutted.”

5. Trump is furious

In a typically incoherent social media post put online in the early hours of Tuesday, Trump’s rage at the release of the report was clear.

Trump, who returns to the presidency on 20 January, wrote: “Deranged Jack Smith was unable to successfully prosecute the Political Opponent of his ‘boss,’ Crooked Joe Biden, so he ends up writing yet another ‘Report’ based on information that the Unselect Committee of Political Hacks and Thugs ILLEGALLY DESTROYED AND DELETED, because it showed how totally innocent I was, and how completely guilty Nancy Pelosi, and others, were. Jack is a lamebrain prosecutor who was unable to get his case tried before the Election, which I won in a landslide. THE VOTERS HAVE SPOKEN!!!”