US president-elect Donald Trump would have been convicted for his alleged effort to overturn the result of the 2020 election if he had not been elected four years later, according to a special counsel report.
The US Justice Department has released Special Counsel Jack Smith's report on Mr Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election, the last act of a prosecutor whose historic criminal cases were thwarted by Mr Trump's election victory in November.
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, which the Office stands fully behind," the report said.
"Indeed, but for Mr Trump's election and imminent return to the Presidency, the (Special Counsel's) Office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial."
The report says Mr Trump engaged in unprecedented criminal effort to overturn his defeat in the 2020 US presidential election.
It also says the counsel considered charging Mr Trump with incitement of insurrection but opted against it.
A section of the report details Mr Smith's case accusing Mr Trump of illegally retaining sensitive national security documents after leaving the White House in 2021.
The Justice Department has committed not to make that portion public while legal proceedings continue against two Trump associates charged in the case.
Mr Smith, who left the Justice Department last week, dropped both cases against Mr Trump after he won last year's election, citing a long-standing Justice Department policy against prosecuting a sitting president. Neither reached a trial.
Mr Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Following the release of the report, Mr Trump said Mr Smith was "deranged" and added that he "was unable to successfully prosecute the Political Opponent of his 'boss'".
"To show you how desperate Deranged Jack Smith is, he released his Fake findings at 1:00 A.M. in the morning," Mr Trump added in another post.
Previously, the US president-elect depicted the cases as politically motivated attempts to damage his campaign and political movement.
Mr Trump and his two former co-defendants in the classified documents case sought to block the release of the report, days before he is set to return to office on 20 January. Courts rebuffed their demands to prevent its publication altogether.
US District Judge Aileen Cannon, who presided over the documents case, has ordered the Justice Department for now to halt plans to allow certain senior members of Congress to privately review the documents section of the report.
Read Special Counsel Jack Smith's report
Prosecutors gave a detailed view of their case against Mr Trump in previous court filings. A congressional panel in 2022 published its own 700-page account of Mr Trump's actions following the 2020 election.
Both investigations concluded that Mr Trump spread false claims of widespread voter fraud following the 2020 election, pressured state politicians not to certify the vote and ultimately sought to use fraudulent groups of electors pledged to vote for Mr Trump, in states actually won by Joe Biden, in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying Mr Biden's win.
The effort culminated in the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol when a mob of Trump supporters stormed Congress in a failed attempt to stop politicians from certifying the vote.
Mr Smith's case faced legal hurdles even before Mr Trump's election win.
It was paused for months while Mr Trump pressed his claim that he could not be prosecuted for official actions taken as president.
The US Supreme Court's conservative majority largely sided with him, granting former presidents broad immunity from criminal prosecution.
