Friday, January 17

ON THE DOCKET THIS WEEK

• Jack Smith’s final note on Trump
• During confirmation hearing, Pam Bondi refuses to say who won the 2020 election
• The GOP’s obsession with the North Carolina Supreme Court race

SPECIAL COUNSEL

Jack Smith’s final note on Trump

After two years of investigating Trump for his attempt to subvert the 2020 election, special counsel Jack Smith released his final, full report. The conclusion? Were it not for President-elect Donald Trump’s election victory, the investigation found that there was enough evidence to convict him in a trial for his crimes.

This conclusion is, of course, moot: Smith dropped the investigation after Trump’s election victory, citing the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) longstanding policy against prosecuting sitting presidents. Still, the full report nonetheless offers the most comprehensive view yet into the overwhelming evidence of Trump’s alleged election subversion crimes.

Trump was charged in August 2023 with four counts for his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election: Conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiracy against the right to vote and have one’s vote counted.

Throughout the 137-page report, Smith presents an overwhelming amount of evidence to back up the charges in the indictment. But one crime the special counsel didn’t charge Trump with was “incitement of insurrection” under the Insurrection Act. The report explains how, despite the evidence that Trump’s speech on the Ellipse the morning of Jan. 6 likely met the legal standard for an incitement of violence, no one’s ever been prosecuted for incitement of an insurrection. Therefore, the special counsel deemed the risk was too great to try and prosecute Trump with such a crime — especially since the other crimes Trump was charged with were sufficient to secure a conviction.

Even though nothing will ultimately come of it, the report will forever be a stain on Trump’s presidency. Read more about the special counsel’s Jan. 6 report here.

Trump is back in office on Monday, and our democracy is at risk. On Jan. 22 at 7 p.m. ET, Marc will discuss Trump’s inaugural address and what the first 100 days of his second presidency might hold. This live, members-only event is your chance to get the insights and resources you need to fight back. Upgrade now to join!

U.S. SENATE

During confirmation hearing, Pam Bondi refuses to say who won the 2020 election

Pam Bondi, the former Florida attorney general and Trump’s nominee for U.S. attorney general, appeared before the U.S. Senate Wednesday for her confirmation hearing. Throughout the hearing, one question was asked numerous times by various senators: who won the 2020 election?

It was a simple question, but one Bondi repeatedly refused to answer. She came close when Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Il.) asked if she was “prepared to say under oath, without reservation, that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election.” Her response was blunt: “President Biden is the President of the United States, he was duly sworn in,” she said. Variations on this question were later asked by Sens. Adam Schiff (D-Ca.), Alex Padilla (D-Ca.) and Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), which at no point did Bondi answer.

“You cannot say who won the 2020 presidential election,” Hirono said when Bondi gave a non-answer. “It’s disturbing that you can’t give voice to that fact.”

Why does this matter? As attorney general, Bondi will be the top lawyer in the country, tasked with representing the United States in all legal matters — including the enforcement of election law. As an attorney, she has a rich history of election denialism: In the aftermath of the 2020 election, Bondi was part of the Trump campaign’s legal effort to challenge ballots in Pennsylvania and went on to spread false allegations of election cheating in the Keystone State.

Since 2021, Bondi has been chair of the America First Policy Institute’s (AFPI) center for litigation and co-chair of its center for law and justice. As one of AFPI’s leading figures, Bondi spearheaded the group’s efforts to disenfranchise voters around the country. Under Bondi, AFPI led a multistate legal effort to overturn a pro-voting Biden executive order that expands voting access. AFPI also got involved in several election lawsuits in Arizona.

Though Bondi’s work to disenfranchise voters in the years since the 2020 election is extensive, she still refused to say if Biden’s election victory was legitimate, dancing around the issue as much as she could. Yet when she spoke about the 2024 election, Bondi was clear in her answer: “President Trump left office and was overwhelmingly elected in 2024,” she said. Read more about Pam Bondi’s confirmation hearing here.

NORTH CAROLINA

The GOP’s obsession with the North Carolina Supreme Court race

On its face, a race for a seat on the Supreme Court of North Carolina, which already has an overwhelming Republican majority, seems insignificant. Yet, the Republican National Committee, North Carolina GOP and Republican candidate Jefferson Griffin are all fighting tooth and nail in court to overturn the results. There’s a lot more than meets the eye.

Just because Trump won the 2024 election, the election denialism movement isn’t going to die down anytime soon. Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chair Jaime Harrison said the GOP’s legal actions over the race are retaliatory — in response to Democrats sweeping state races in November.

Also, if Republicans can use these cases — which challenge ballots from voters who registered with a form that didn’t make it clear that certain ID information was required — to set a precedent for future election challenges, they’ll take that opportunity and run with it.

But Democrats and many voters are not taking this lying down. Earlier this week, numerous North Carolinians gathered at a rally to protest Griffin’s election challenges, reading aloud the names of the 60,000 voters affected.

Also, the DNC and Democratic incumbent Justice Allison Riggs, Griffin’s opponent, are pursuing action in the courts. Riggs is doing what she can to get this race resolved before the Court’s 2025 term begins Feb. 11.

“I won by 734 votes. That was confirmed by a statewide recount. It was confirmed by a hand-eye sample recount,” Riggs said in a Democracy Docket interview. “It’s time to move on.”

Read more here about what’s going on in North Carolina.

OPINION

Bringing Norms to a Trump Fight

This year many Trump critics used Jan. 6 to praise Democrats for being well behaved rather than focus on the violent insurrection of four years ago. But Jan. 6 should be reserved for remembering what Trump and the angry mob he inspired did to attack this country’s peaceful transfer of power, according to Marc in a new piece.

“The shift was also in full display in a Washington Post headline about the release of Jack Smith’s report: Appeals court allows release of Smith’s report on Trump’s election-reversal effort,” Marc writes. “To be clear the ‘election-reversal effort’ involved frivolous litigation, fraudulent electors, pressuring state officials and a violent insurrection to block the peaceful transfer of power. It is possible that this is more Bezos-inspired obeyance in advance. More likely, it is just journalistic drift towards normalizing the obscene.” Read more here.

NEW EPISODE

Rep. Dan Goldman Calls Out “Dangerous” Cabinet Nominees, Jack Smith Report

New York Congressman and former federal prosecutor Dan Goldman gives his opinion on Jack Smith’s report on Donald Trump’s election subversion indictment, whether we’ll see the classified documents report, cabinet nominees and more. Watch it on YouTube here.

What We’re Doing