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Late in the afternoon o n Aug. 1, 2023, then-special counsel Jack Smith secured a federal criminal indictment against Donald Trump stemming from the Republican’s alleged election interference efforts following his 2020 defeat. It was a four-count indictment that charged Trump with conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.
Almost immediately, GOP congressional leaders responded to the indictment by effectively saying they didn’t care.
Their reactions come to mind anew now that the prosecutor’s final report on the case is available to the public. NBC News’ report summarized:
President-elect Donald Trump ‘inspired his supporters to commit acts of physical violence’ on Jan. 6 and knowingly spread an objectively false narrative about election fraud in the 2020 election, special counsel Jack Smith said in a report defending his investigation made public early Tuesday. The 170-page report summarized Smith’s investigation into Trump’s efforts to maintain power after he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden, which culminated in the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
It’s fair to say that Smith’s final report does not break dramatic new ground, though it’s a devastating summary of a thorough investigation and compelling evidence of a president who, as the former special counsel alleged, “resorted to a series of criminal efforts to retain power.”
Over the course of the document, the prosecutor pushed back against baseless allegations of partisan interference, fleshed out the details of the president-elect’s alleged crimes, highlighted Trump’s “demonstrably and, in many cases, obviously false” claims, and argued that the special counsel’s office was likely to prevail at trial.
“[B]ut for Mr. Trump’s election and imminent return to the Presidency, the Office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial,” Smith’s report added.
Though the president-elect had plenty of time to prepare a carefully worded response to the findings, he did not spend that time well: The best Trump could muster was some clumsily worded middle-of-the-night social media posts filled with obvious lies and falsehoods.
We’ll learn soon enough how — and just as importantly, whether — Republicans on Capitol Hill respond to Smith’s findings, but hanging overhead is a more foundational question: Is there any chance that GOP lawmakers will actually read the document?
Given the recent track record, it’s difficult to be optimistic. As regular readers might recall, Republican officials didn’t read Trump’s criminal indictments. Or the Mueller report. Or the Durham report. Or the Senate Intelligence Committee’s findings on the Russia scandal. Or the Justice Department inspector general’s report on the investigation into the Russia scandal.
During Trump’s Ukraine scandal, which led to his first impeachment, a variety of GOP officials conceded they hadn’t read documents that were directly relevant to the investigation. Also during the Trump era, many Republicans didn’t read their own health care plan — and soon after they also didn’t read their own tax plan.
During the Obama era, Republicans railed against the international nuclear agreement with Iran, even as some in the party conceded they hadn’t read the policy they were condemning. (The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank noted at the time, “This is legislating by reflex — a mass knee-jerk by the Republican majority in Congress. Those who howled ‘read the bill’ during the health-care debate couldn’t be bothered to read the nuclear agreement before sounding off.”)
About a year ago, when a bipartisan agreement came together on border and immigration policies, a variety of GOP lawmakers condemned the bill while conceding they hadn’t read it.
With this in mind, what are the odds that congressional Republicans will take the time to examine the Smith report?
This post updates our related earlier coverage.