Special counsel doubles down in election interference case

A U.S. district judge on Wednesday unsealed a lengthy court filing by the special prosecutor in the Washington, D.C., election interference case against former President Donald Trump. The stated aim of the 165-page filing by special counsel Jack Smith was to demonstrate that Trump’s alleged misconduct surrounding his efforts to contest and possibly overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election should be considered private acts, as opposed to official ones. The filing divulged information and allegations unearthed by Smith’s investigation into the former president, but whether the case moves forward to trial hinges on a judge’s determination.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in July that presidents have broad immunity from prosecution for official acts but not acts legally classified as private. If U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan rules in Smith’s favor, classifying Trump’s conduct as private, the case can move forward.

What allegations are made in the filing? The document accuses Trump and his alleged accomplices of committing crimes to keep Trump in office for a second, going so far as to engage in what Smith characterizes as increasingly desperate efforts to overturn legitimate election results. Those efforts were focused on the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, according to the filing. It accuses Trump of lying to state officials to get them to ignore vote counts, manufacturing fraudulent electoral votes, trying to enlist Vice President Mike Pence to obstruct election certification, and instigating the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

In what ways does it allege Trump was deceptive? The filing says Trump laid the groundwork for his efforts to overturn the election results months in advance by refusing to say whether he would accept the outcome if he lost. As the election moved closer, advisers told Trump the race’s outcome would likely not be decided on Election Day but possibly days or even weeks after. They explained that he would likely see a lead in the vote tally on the night of the election, but that lead could diminish or vanish entirely as mail-in ballots were slowly counted.

According to Smith’s filing, Trump privately told his advisers he would declare victory before all of the ballots were counted. Publicly, he made statements indicating that the only way he could possibly lose the election was if it was rigged and that it was against the law to count votes days or weeks after the election.

At one point, he privately told his family members, “It doesn’t matter if you won or lost the election, you still have to fight like [obscenity],” according to a White House staffer cited in the filing.

What else did the filing allege? It accused Trump campaign staff of trying to create chaos at locations where mail-in ballots were still being counted. It recounts an incident when a campaign worker told an associate at a Detroit polling location to sow doubt about the legitimacy of the ballot-counting process, going so far as to order the associate to start a riot at the location.

The filing accuses the former president and his alleged accomplices of inventing false claims of voter fraud, including large numbers of dead people voting, as well as nonresidents, noncitizens, and other ineligible voters. His claims of the numbers of fraudulent votes cast by dead voters varied from 36,000, to 250,000, to “a few hundred thousand,” none of which were ever verified, according to the filing. Smith also accused the former president of making false claims that voting machines were switching votes in favor of Biden.

The filing goes on to outline Trump’s alleged efforts to influence the outcome of the election in each of the battleground states. At one point, Trump was confronted by one of his assistants and Vice President Mike Pence, both of whom told him his claims of election fraud were unfounded, according to the filing. Trump allegedly told his assistant that the details don’t matter.

What has Trump’s legal team said in response to the filing? In a statement to CBS News, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said the filing was both unconstitutional and riddled with falsehoods. He went on to characterize the case against Trump as a partisan, unconstitutional witch hunt that should be immediately dismissed.

The former president responded in a Truth Social post Wednesday afternoon. He reiterated his belief that the allegations were falsehood-ridden and unconstitutional and pointed out that the brief was unsealed only 33 days before the Nov. 5 election. He also accused Smith of being deranged and weaponizing the U.S. Department of Justice against him because he is leading in the polls. He added the claim that the DOJ intended the filing to be a hit piece because his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance, humiliated Democratic vice presidential candidate Gov. Tim Walz in a debate Tuesday night.

Dig deeper: Read Leo Briceno and Carolina Lumetta’s report on the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity.