The special prosecutor investigating the case against Donald Trump for attempts to illegally overturn the results of the 2020 election claims that the Republican was acting as a candidate and therefore cannot benefit from presidential immunity, in a document published Wednesday.
In a voluminous written argument of 165 pages, largely redacted to preserve the anonymity of witnesses, presented last week to Judge Tanya Chutkan, prosecutor Jack Smith intends to demonstrate the private nature of the acts for which the former Republican president is being prosecuted. .
According to him, these acts are therefore not covered by the broad criminal immunity granted to the President of the United States by the Supreme Court in an unprecedented decision on 1er July.
This document includes previously undisclosed elements of the file, such as testimony from a senior White House official at the time, reporting a surprise conversation between Donald Trump, his wife, his daughter and his son. son-in-law aboard the presidential helicopter.
“It doesn’t matter whether you won or lost the election, you have to fight like a dog,” Donald Trump allegedly told them, according to this testimony that the prosecution plans to present at a future trial.
Following his defeat in the 2020 presidential election by Democratic candidate Joe Biden, “with the aid of private accomplices, the defendant embarked on a series of increasingly desperate plans to reverse the legitimate results in seven states he had narrowly lost, writes Jack Smith.
These attempts culminated in the assault on the Capitol, the sanctuary of American democracy, by hundreds of white-hot supporters of Donald Trump, he recalls.
“The heart of the scheme was private in nature. He extensively used private actors and his campaign structures to attempt to overturn the results of the election and acted in his private capacity as a candidate,” the Special Prosecutor concludes.
The former president and current Republican candidate reacted to this publication in a series of outraged messages on his Truth Social network, denouncing a document “riddled with falsehoods” and accusing the outgoing Democratic administration of “electoral interference”.
By a majority of six votes to three — conservative judges against progressives — the Supreme Court held that the president enjoyed “no immunity for his unofficial acts” but was “entitled at least to a presumption of immunity for his official acts.
Targeted by several criminal proceedings, Donald Trump is doing everything possible to go to trial as late as possible, at least after the vote on November 5.
If he were elected again, once inaugurated in January 2025, he could order a halt to federal proceedings against him.