Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the House Judiciary Committee ranking member who took a leading role in the House investigation over Donald Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 election, said in a statement Wednesday that the released part of special counsel Jack Smith's final report sets forth "irrefutable evidence" that the president-elect led a "shocking criminal scheme to overturn the legitimate 2020 election results and retain power."
“Trump’s offenses are compounded by his refusal to accept accountability and his unrelenting efforts to block the truth from coming out about his conduct — including by threatening and harassing the prosecutors and witnesses involved in DOJ’s investigation and subsequent litigation, and attempting to block the release of this very report at the eleventh hour," Raskin said.
The Justice Department released the 137-page Volume 1 of Smith's final report early Tuesday morning. According to the report, criminal investigators interviewed more than 250 people and obtained testimony from more than 55 grand jury witnesses, uncovering evidence that many legal experts and Smith himself said would have sealed Trump's conviction had he been brought to trial.
Instead, a series of delays and then Trump's election victory forced the Justice Department to drop the case. While Smith's report will not change that fact, Trump's lawyers tried every means of stopping its release for fear that it would damage their boss.
Raskin led impeachment proceedings against Trump after the Jan. 6 insurrection and sat on the special House committee formed to investigate the attack, which also fell under Smith's purview. In his statement, Raskin highlighted "key findings" of the report, including that Trump and his associates were deeply involved not just in the insurrection but a months-long plot to pressure officials to nullify election results and send false certifications from bad-faith electors; that Trump was aware that his claims of Democratic Party-led voter fraud were false; and that Trump used executive privilege and witness intimidation to "block the truth about his illegal conduct, posing unique challenges for special counsel Smith’s investigation."
Raskin also reproached House Republicans for helping Trump escape justice and engaging in "sinister revisionism" to "obscure or vaporize the plain reality described in the special counsel’s report."
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