On Wednesday, Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith’s briefing laying out the reasoning behind continuing the election subversion case against former President Donald Trump was partially unsealed, revealing evidence that, no matter the outcome of the 2020 election, Trump intended to remain in office, even if it was through illegal means.
Smith’s filing was necessary after the U.S. Supreme Court gave Trump and all former presidents unprecedented immunity against prosecution for actions they performed as president, a ruling they issued this past summer. According to Smith, Trump’s illegal acts were performed as a candidate for office, not as president, justifying the need to continue the case against him.
Included within the brief are comments from Trump, heard by several witnesses, indicating that he was going to dispute the election results if he lost, and that he had planned a declaration of victory well before Election Day.
Speaking to his family, Trump told them that losing the election wouldn’t make a difference. “It doesn’t matter if you won or lost the election. You still have to fight like hell,” Trump said, according to an unnamed witness cited in Smith’s brief who overheard the conversation.
The witness, who is willing to testify, said the remarks were made in a private capacity, and not in the presence of any White House advisers.
The witness heard “an unprompted comment that the defendant made to his family members in which the defendant suggested that he would fight to remain in power regardless of whether he had won the election,” the filing from Smith said.
Another witness noted that Trump was “going to declare victory” no matter what the election results were, and had made the plan to do so well before Election Day.
“He’s going to declare victory. That doesn’t mean he’s the winner, he’s just going to say he’s the winner,” that witness said, per the filing.
Trump overstepped his executive authority to “perpetuate himself in power, contrary to the will of the people,” the special counsel asserted.
It appears that Trump is once again preparing to dispute the legitimacy of the election if he loses, as he has repeatedly (and baselessly) suggested that undocumented immigrants will illegally cast ballots against him in this year’s presidential race.
Every state in the country has mechanisms in place to ensure that votes are cast only by citizens. Still, Trump laid the groundwork for contesting the election results in the September presidential debate against Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.
Democrats and the Harris campaign are “trying to get [immigrants] to vote, and that’s why they’re allowing them into our country,” Trump claimed, without evidence.
When Trump preemptively contested the election results in 2020, he focused on disputing the legitimacy of mail-in voting. This year, however, Trump’s strategy centers around attacking and scapegoating immigrants, and he has been encouraging his supporters to use mail-in ballots if they desire to do so.
Trump and his allies “are pre-deploying a big lie to justify their future efforts to disrupt or overturn elections,” Wendy Weiser, a lawyer with the Brennan Center for Justice, told HuffPost regarding Trump’s strategy.
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