Trump has not been exonerated, special counsel Jack Smith declares in final report

Donald Trump has not been exonerated for his “unprecedented criminal effort” to subvert the 2020 election and cling to power after he lost to Joe Biden.

That’s the message special counsel Jack Smith delivered in his final report, which laid out evidence Smith said would have resulted in Trump’s conviction at trial. Trump is only off the hook, the special counsel wrote, because he won back the White House in 2024, forcing the Justice Department to shut down the historic prosecution.

“The Department’s view that the Constitution prohibits the continued indictment and prosecution of a President is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the Government’s proof, or the merits of the prosecution,” Smith wrote in a 137-page volume of the report that the Justice Department sent to Congress and publicly released on Tuesday morning, shortly after midnight.