We just got the most extensive new detail in years about former president Donald Trump’s plot to overturn the 2020 election, in the form of a much-anticipated filing from special counsel Jack Smith.
The 165-page, partially redacted filing, which was unsealed by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, lays out the evidence Smith’s team would like to present in the long-delayed Jan. 6 federal criminal case against Trump. What evidence Smith can use and what charges can stand is disputed after the Supreme Court recently gave presidents including Trump extensive immunity from criminal prosecution.
But the filing also doubles as a sort of blueprint for the case ahead. It features some significant revelations and quotes that could be important not just for the legal battle, but for the 2024 election.
Below are some takeaways from the filing.
1. ‘Make them riot’: A prescient comment two months before Jan. 6
A big part of the case against Trump is making clear that he and those around him knew their plan was corrupt — that it wasn’t just them really believing the election was stolen.
And one detail in particular stands out.
The filing cites a scene from Nov. 4, 2020, at the TCF Center in Detroit. It says a colleague of a Trump campaign official and an alleged co-conspirator informed them that a batch of votes that heavily favored Joe Biden was apparently correct.
The alleged co-conspirator, whose description matches that of Trump Election Day operations chief Mike Roman, allegedly responded by saying “find a reason it isnt” and “give me options to file litigation.” And then in a mangled message, the co-conspirator seems to suggest they’re not concerned if the claims are frivolous — “even if itbis.”
The colleague suggested such things could lead to a repeat of the so-called “Brooks Brothers riot,” a fraught scene in South Florida during the contested 2000 presidential election.
The Trump campaign official and co-conspirator allegedly responded: “Make them riot” and “Do it!!!”
It’s an eerily prescient comment, given that just two months later Trump’s false and often nonsensical claims of voter fraud would lead to a large-scale riot at the Capitol. (It’s worth noting that whether the Brooks Brothers riot was actually particularly violent is disputed.)
It could certainly help prosecutors drive home the point that the people behind the effort to contest the 2020 election didn’t actually care about the evidence and whether they were right; they just wanted to sow doubt.
2. ‘So what?’: Trump’s seeming lack of concern
The filing fills out some key details of what happened after the Capitol riot touched off on Jan. 6. It repeatedly reinforces the idea that Trump was well aware of what was taking place even as he, for hours, resisted reining in his supporters and even launched an attack on Vice President Mike Pence at 2:24 p.m.
The timeline here was filled out somewhat by the House Jan. 6 committee, but the filing contains even more detail.
It says that around 1:30 p.m., Trump settled into the dining room next to the Oval Office and “spent the afternoon there reviewing Twitter on his phone,” while Fox News played on the TV. It suggests prosecutors have forensic evidence from the activity logs on Trump’s phone to back up that he was “consistently” using his Twitter application.
A footnote says that, before Trump’s tweet attacking Pence, advisers told him that “there’s a riot, and there are people inside the Capitol Building,” as well as “that someone’s gotten into the Capitol.”
The filing goes on to say Trump was alone when he tweeted at 2:24 p.m. that Pence “didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution.” (Rioters at one point chanted for Pence’s hanging, and Pence had been evacuated at 2:13 p.m.)
All of those are crucial to establishing that Trump had reason to believe Pence could be in danger and that he knew things had gotten out of hand, and that he pressed forward with attacking Pence anyway. It also builds on extensive evidence suggesting Trump declined for hours to do something about the violence. He didn’t tell people to go home until 4:17 p.m.
But perhaps the most vivid new detail comes from shortly after Trump’s Pence tweet. It says an aide relayed a phone call to Trump stating that Pence had been taken to a secure location. The aide hoped Trump would do something to help, according to the filing.
Instead, Trump allegedly responded: “So what?”
It’s hardly the first evidence that Trump might have been indifferent to Pence’s fate and might even have seen utility in the unrest, when it came to his efforts to overturn the election. But it might be among the most striking pieces of evidence on that front.
3. The political impact
Trump won’t face trial before next month’s election, and it’s possible he never will, if he wins. But the filing at the very least served as a late reminder of an ugly, Trump-inspired episode, with just more than a month to go before voters decided whether to return him to the White House.
Those reminders and new details have been few and far between since the Jan. 6 committee wrapped up its business nearly two years ago. Trump hasn’t appeared to pay any real political price for his four indictments, which include a financial fraud conviction in Manhattan. But many casual voters appear to be unfamiliar with these cases, and the race is looking extremely close. That makes the new disclosures untimely for Trump.
Trump posted repeatedly on Truth Social on Wednesday claiming the filing was election interference.
“The DOJ pushed out this latest ‘hit job’ today because JD Vance humiliated Tim Walz last night in the Debate,” Trump claimed.
But the timing also owes to Trump’s lengthy legal challenges, which successfully delayed the trial past the election and gave Trump a significant degree of immunity, but haven’t stopped the cases altogether.
And it’s worth noting that Trump’s claim about the vice-presidential debate is false. The Justice Department made its filing a week ago — long before the debate — and it didn’t unseal it; Chutkan did.
4. More evidence that Trump had nothing — and was told that
Another central question when it comes to proving Trump knew better is pointing to all the times he was told his theories were false. This is something the Jan. 6 committee also focused on, keying in on testimony from former attorney general William P. Barr and former deputy attorney general Richard Donoghue, as well as former acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen and some Trump aides.
But the filing adds significant new detail.
It says then-Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel cited to Trump a comment from Michigan state House Speaker Lee Chatfield (R) calling claims about voting machines in Antrim County, Mich., “f—ing nuts.”
It says the leader of the Michigan state Senate, Mike Shirkey (R), told Trump he hadn’t lost because of fraud but because he under-performed other Republicans and lost educated women. It adds that Shirkey “could tell by the defendant’s body language that he was not happy to hear” this.
The filing also lays out many details about Pence’s handling of the claims, making clear he consistently cast doubt on them — including in Trump’s presence. Many of the quotes are from Pence’s recent book, but the filing says Pence also urged Trump as early as Nov. 12: “don’t concede but recognize process is over.”
As notably, the filing makes clear that Trump’s campaign repeatedly failed to pony up evidence to Republicans it sought to recruit — then-Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) and then-Arizona state House Speaker Rusty Bowers (R).
By Dec. 8, longtime Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller allegedly wrote a telling email.
“When our research and campaign legal team can’t back up any of the claims made by our Elite Strike Force Legal Team, you can see why we’re 0-32 on our cases,” Miller allegedly said. “I’ll obviously hustle to help on all fronts, but it’s tough to own any of this when it’s all just conspiracy s— beamed down from the mothership.”
The quote was cited last year in Trump’s indictment, but without attribution. Now we learn it allegedly came from one of his closest aides — then and now.
5. A Trump quote to sum it up
In a filing full of juicy quotes, perhaps one ties it all together. It’s from Trump himself.
“It doesn’t matter if you won or lost the election,” Trump allegedly told family members and others aboard Marine One. “You still have to fight like hell.”
The filing says the comment was overheard by the same aide who brought Trump news of Pence being moved to a secure location.
Trump allegedly echoed the comment when one of his election lawyers told him his claims would not hold up in court, telling them “The details don’t matter.”
Trump has offered conflicting comments about whether he actually lost the 2020 election. He mostly says it was stolen, but he’ll sometimes talk about it as an actual loss — including recently. This could certainly be read as further proof that the evidence didn’t really matter to him. And that could help prosecutors prove corruption.
