Special Counsel Jack Smith obliterated Trump’s Big Lie that the election was stolen while announcing the latest indictment of the failed former president.
Smith said:
Today an indictment was unsealed charging Donald J. Trump with conspiring to defraud the United States, conspiring to disenfranchise voters, and conspiring and attempting to obstruct an official proceeding. The indictment was issued by a grand jury of citizens here in the District of Columbia and it sets forth the crimes charged in detail. I encourage everyone to read it in full. The attack on our nation’s Capitol on January 6th, 2021 was an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy. It’s described in the indictment. It’s fueled by lies. Lies by the defendant, targeted at obstructing a bedrock function of the U.S. Government, a nation’s process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election.
The men and women of law enforcement who defended the U.S. Capitol on January 6th are heroes. They are patriots, and they are the very best of us. They did not just defend a building or the people sheltering in it. They put their lives on the line to defend who we are as a country and as a people. They defended the very institutions and principles that define the United States. Since the attack on our Capitol, the Department of Justice remained committed to ensuring accountability for those criminally responsible for what happened that day. This case is brought consistent with that moment, and our investigation of other individuals continues. In this case, my office will seek a speedy trial so that our evidence can be tested in court and judged by a jury of citizens.
Video of Smith:
Trump’s lies were not free speech. They were part of a criminal conspiracy to stay in power. If Trump would have given speeches expressing his belief that he was robbed, and did nothing else, that would have been free speech. People would have called Trump a sore loser and moved on, but Trump didn’t stop at lies.
The Big Lie was part of a larger plot. It was the tread of a criminal conspiracy. Trump had to get other people to believe the Big Lie to give them a justification for a plot to deprive people of their votes and a conspiracy to defraud the United States.
The lies were more than words. They were part of a crime, and Jack Smith has put all of the pieces together to show that Trump wasn’t an irrational actor who was emotionally lashing out.
Donald J. Trump was the leader of a criminal conspiracy against the United States and its people.
