Trump On Trial: “Pros Memo” Analyzes Charges DOJ May Bring Against Trump For 2020 Election Interference
A model prosecution memorandum (or “pros memo”), published today on Just Security, assesses federal charges Special Counsel Jack Smith may bring against former President Donald Trump for alleged criminal interference in the 2020 presidential election.
The deeply researched 264-page pros memo concludes that there likely is sufficient evidence to obtain and sustain a conviction of Trump for his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
“A careful review of the Select Committee’s work and other significant amounts of public information leads us to an inescapable conclusion: not since the Civil War has our democracy been so threatened,” according to the pros memo. “It is therefore appropriate that charges seldom seen since the Civil War would be considered in prosecuting the allegedly criminal conduct engaged in by Trump and some of his closest associates. They came perilously close to preventing, by force, the lawful transition of power to a duly elected President.”
The memo lays out the known evidence of Trump’s three-step plan to overturn the 2020 presidential election:
- Trump knew he lost the election, so he worked with his lawyers and others on schemes to change the outcome, including creating fraudulent electoral certificates that were submitted to Congress.
- When other schemes failed, Trump and his lawyers concentrated on using the false electoral slates to obstruct the congressional certification of the election on January 6. Their objective was to have Vice President Mike Pence either block Congress from recognizing Joe Biden’s win or at least delay the electoral count.
- When Pence refused, Trump went to his last resort: triggering an insurrection in the hope that it would throw Congress off course, delaying the transfer of power for the first time in American history.
The pros memo lays out the known facts and evidence, the application of laws to the case, and the potential defenses.
The pros memo was prepared by Ambassador Norman Eisen (ret.), Noah Bookbinder, Donald Ayer, Joshua Stanton, E. Danya Perry, Debra Perlin, and Kayvan Farchadi. The authors have decades of experience as federal prosecutors, criminal defense lawyers, and other legal expertise.
The report is available on Just Security and as a PDF.
