Former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith told lawmakers in a closed-door interview on Wednesday that his team of investigators “developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt” that President Donald Trump had criminally conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election, according to portions of his opening statement obtained by The Associated Press.

He also said investigators had accrued “powerful evidence” that Trump broke the law by hoarding classified documents from his first term as president at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, and by obstructing government efforts to recover the records.

“I made my decisions in the investigation without regard to President Trump’s political association, activities, beliefs, or candidacy in the 2024 election,” Smith said. “We took actions based on what the facts and the law required — the very lesson I learned early in my career as a prosecutor.”

  • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social
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    5 days ago

    The Democratic Party wanted to run against Trump again because that’s the only way the neoliberals can sell their lesser evil horseshit.

    • PhilipTheBucket@piefed.social
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      5 days ago

      Probably true. And they got their gift in spades after the last election. Any hope of pulling them to the left, because the party apparatchiks might lose elections if they don’t start appealing to the majority of Americans, pretty much went out the fuckin’ window now that the Republicans are historically unpopular forever. Chuck Schumer can relax and just point to Trump any time someone tells him he’s in any danger.

      • QueenHawlSera@sh.itjust.works
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        3 days ago

        Are you sure they’re historically unpopular? I keep seeing people on Social Media go gaga for Trump and cheer on his cruelty to trans people

      • Jhex@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        LOL you still think you will have elections and that the orange paedophile will respect the results

        It must be nice to be that naive

        • PhilipTheBucket@piefed.social
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          5 days ago

          There are some comments in my history listing “cancelled elections” as one of the important reasons to vote against Trump, back before this whole thing happened.

          My overall point here is that if anyone was thinking that refusing to vote for Kamala Harris was a winning strategy to “push the Democrats to the left,” they got it catastrophically backwards (and yes actually the fact that we might not even really have elections going forward depending on how things go as a really important reason why).