Special Counsel, Jack Smith's Final Report: Cutting through the noise and laying down the facts

Jack-Smith and Donald Trump

The US Department of Justice released Special Counsel Jack Smith's final report, claiming that Donald Trump illegally conspired to overturn the 2020 election.

The report lays out why charges were pursued or dropped—no politics, no games, just federal guidelines. It tackles two critical investigations involving Donald Trump: election Interference and Classified Documents. Smith dismantles Trump's 'witch hunt' cries and delves into how Trump tried to hijack democracy itself, bending federal laws to cling to power after losing in 2020. Some parts stay sealed.

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READ The Second Coming: 2024 US Election

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What does this say about our once-great nation?

The lengthy 137-page document, dated January 7, summarized years of Smith's investigation into the 2020 election interference case involving President-elect Donald Trump. It concluded that Trump would likely have been convicted in the case if he had not been elected president in 2024.

Preview or Download the full report Here:

Theo Edwards for YAME Digital

Tags #Final Report on the Special Counsel's Investigations and Prosecutions | #The US Department of Justice [DoJ] | #Jack Smith | #election-LAW-blog

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Highlights from the "Final Report of the Special Counsel Under 28 C.F.R. § 600.8":

• Investigations: The report covers two major investigations involving former President Donald J. Trump. The first investigation focused on potential interference with the lawful transfer of power following the 2020 presidential election. The second investigation examined the possession of highly classified documents at Mr. Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence
• Findings: The Special Counsel, Jack Smith, and his team conducted thorough investigations and subsequent prosecutions under their mandate. The report details the findings and prosecution decisions made during these investigations
• Public and Confidential Volumes: The report is divided into two volumes. Volume One is available to the public, while Volume Two remains confidential due to ongoing criminal proceedings
• Attorney General's Remarks: Attorney General Merrick B. Garland emphasized the importance of independence and accountability in handling these sensitive matters. He highlighted the Department of Justice's commitment to impartiality and fairness
• Special Counsel's Commitment: Upon his appointment, Special Counsel Jack Smith pledged to exercise independent judgment, follow the best traditions of the Department of Justice, and conduct his work expeditiously and thoroughly to reach whatever outcome the facts and law dictated

The Second Coming

2024 US Election

America and the world are livid

Google search 'election result 2024'. Select the view pane for President, Senate, House, etc. Toggle the 'All states' box under the US map by expanding the drop-down to find out more.

They say, "The eyes are the windows of the soul." Looking into the mirror, we see that America's soul is decidedly murky. The world was under the illusion that we Americans were so much better, but the election outcome indicates otherwise.

Something fundamentally wrong

Vanity Fair, the popular Condé Nast culture fashion, and current affairs magazine published a digital cover featuring a close-up image of him alongside the words: “34 felony counts, 1 conviction, 2 pending cases, 2 impeachments, and 6 bankruptcies, 4 more years—the 47th American president.”

In the wake of Trump’s victory. We have now elected a President with no guardrails. A man who promised to be a dictator from day one! A man who openly vowed to get rid of the Department of Education, which is a dog whistle for defunding Public Schools. The last time we checked that’s where most minorities send their kids to get an education. We have now elected a man who promised to gut down the EPA and has shown his disdain for NATO. We have now elected a man who at the ‘height of the pandemic in 2020, while the dead bodies of Americans were being dumped in trenches, secretly shipped our much-needed medications to Russia’ ~ Wall Street Journal. He now has control of the Congress, the Senate, the Justice Department, and the Supreme Court.

These election results beg the question: When will folks realize what they are up against and unite? Trump got more Hispanic votes than any other candidate since JFK. He called them rapists, animals, and crooks, yet 45% rode him to victory. Blacks are saying Kamala is not Black enough. Maybe they would prefer a Black candidate from the Ghetto who speaks Ebonics.

Analysts say race and gender played a significant role in Harris’s defeat, but so did voter disillusionment. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders issued a scathing statement on the Democratic Party's ‘disastrous’ campaign after Vice President Kamala Harris lost.

Reflections Through a Dark Mirror

Jerry Seinfeld had it right: "It would be a nice world if it weren't for the people."

We have made our bed, and now we must lie in it. We must live with the decisions of this democratic process. For some, there is hope and joy; for others, there is worry and despair. Regardless of how you feel, we must face the outcome together. Considering everything that happened during his 45th term, it is difficult for us to understand the electorate's decision. However, we must now move forward, hoping that our democracy will not be destroyed in the process.

While we may have voted as a country, real change occurs in our local communities within America. We need to focus on our values and promote ideals that benefit everyone, one neighbor at a time.

Does this task feel overwhelming, naive, and overly hopeful? Without a doubt! But what’s the alternative? Destruction, division, and chaos await us if we don’t act!

Where we go from here is uncertain, but we hope America will do her best to act rightly, regardless of who is in D.C. God Bless us all!

Jonathan Pie | @JonathanPieNews

Trump wins the White House. Again. The Democrats blew it. Again. A depressing yet predictable result.

A depressing yet predictable result. pic.twitter.com/YAGfv2SAmd— Jonathan Pie (@JonathanPieNews) November 6, 2024

Contributors: Ola George, Theo Edwards, and J. Reynold Weeks for YAME Digital

It's not that Kamala Harris lost; it's that America itself has lost. Share your thoughts!

Trump Picks Massad Boulos to Serve as Adviser on Arab, Middle Eastern Affairs

Andrea Shalal and Maya Gebeily | Sun, December 1, 2024 at 11:02 AM EST 5 min read

Eric Trump, his sister Tiffany Trump and her boyfriend Massad Boulos arrive for U.S. President Donald Trump's acceptance speech as the 2020 Republican presidential nominee in Washington

By Andrea Shalal and Maya Gebeily

WASHINGTON/BEIRUT (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday said Lebanese American businessman Massad Boulos would serve as senior adviser on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs.

Trump made the announcement on Truth Social. Boulos, the father-in-law of Trump's daughter Tiffany, met repeatedly with Arab American and Muslim leaders during the election campaign.

It was the second time in recent days that Trump chose the father-in-law of one of his children to serve in his administration.

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READ The Second Coming. In the wake of Trump’s victory

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On Saturday, Trump said that he had picked his son-in-law Jared Kushner's father, real estate mogul Charles Kushner, to serve as U.S. ambassador to France.

In recent months, Boulos campaigned for Trump to drum up Lebanese and Arab American support, even as the U.S.-backed Israel's military campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Boulos has powerful roots in both countries.

His father and grandfather were both figures in Lebanese politics and his father-in-law was a key funder of the Free Patriotic Movement, a Christian party aligned with Hezbollah.

His son Michael and Tiffany Trump were married in an elaborate ceremony at Trump's Florida Mar-a-Lago Club in November 2022, after getting engaged in the White House Rose Garden during Trump's first term.

Boulos has been in touch with interlocutors across Lebanon's multipolar political world, three sources who spoke to him in recent months say, a rare feat in Lebanon, where decades-old rivalries between factions run deep.

Particularly notable is his ability to maintain relations with Hezbollah, they say. The Iranian-backed Shi'ite Muslim party has a large number of seats in Lebanon's parliament and ministers in the government.

Boulos is a friend of Suleiman Frangieh, a Christian ally of Hezbollah and its candidate for Lebanon's presidency. The sources say he is also in touch with the Lebanese Forces Party, a vehemently anti-Hezbollah Christian faction, and has ties to independent lawmakers.

Aron Lund, fellow at the Century Foundation think tank, said Boulos was well placed to influence Trump's Middle East policy after playing a small but significant role in expanding Trump's appeal to Arab American and Muslim voters during the campaign.

"Boulos' Lebanese political past gives no real indication of a geostrategic or even national vision, but it demonstrates ambition and a set of political allies that will stand out in Trump's circle like a sore thumb," Lund wrote.

MICHIGAN WIN

Boulos, a billionaire with extensive business ties in Nigeria, was born in Lebanon, but moved to Texas as a teenager, where he attended the University of Houston, earned a law degree, and became a U.S. citizen.

His son and Trump's daughter, whose mother is Trump's second wife, Marla Maples, met on the Greek island of Mykonos, at actor Lindsay Lohan's club, People Magazine reported in 2022.

Trump's election win in Michigan came in part because of Boulos' help flipping some of the 300,000 Arab Americans and Muslims in the state who overwhelmingly supported Biden in 2020 but opposed Biden's policies in Israel, Gaza and Lebanon, Trump campaign officials and supporters told Reuters.

"Boulos played a big role in the outreach to Muslim voters," said Rabiul Chowdhury, co-founder of Muslims for Trump.

Beginning in September, the Trump campaign held weekly meetings in person and via Zoom with dozens of Arab American and Muslim civic leaders and business executives.

Boulos spent weeks on the ground in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and other states with big Arab American and Muslim populations, assuring audiences in private lunches and dinners that tapped his own connections to Lebanese American businessmen that Trump was committed to ending the wars in the Middle East.

The Trump campaign spent tens of millions of dollars on the effort to mobilize Arab American and Muslim voters, Boulos told Reuters in an interview shortly after the election.

Trump won endorsements from Muslim imams and the Muslim mayor of Hamtramck, another town near Detroit with a large Arab American population, as well as the large Bangladeshi community, and courted Iraqi Americans, Albanian Americans, and others.

While the events on the ground in Lebanon played a factor, the economy did too. And conservative Arabs and Muslims were concerned about what they saw as the Democrats' "far-left ideology," including support of transgender rights, Boulos said.

Boulos met with members of the 150,000-strong Albanian community in Michigan.

POLITICAL AMBITIONS?

The new role could offer Boulos the kind of political clout he could not achieve in Lebanon. He had a brief run for Lebanon's parliament in 2018 alongside pro-Hezbollah candidates, but since then he has not consistently aligned himself with any particular party, sources in Lebanon said. He hails from a Greek Orthodox family. In Lebanon's sectarian power-sharing system, that would cap his chances at a senior role in government at the level of deputy speaker of parliament. The post of president - the highest Christian role in the country - is reserved for Maronite Catholics.

While he used to travel to Lebanon frequently, he has not visited in the last four years, one of the sources said.

Some people in Lebanon were hopeful about the prospects of having a friendly face in Trump's inner circle even before the announcement on Sunday.

"It's a nice thing - and hopefully he will work for Lebanon. And Trump maybe is of the type who makes a promise and could possibly be more loyal to it than others," said Hamdi Hawallah, a Lebanese man in his late 70s.

"So we're optimistic about him. These days we hold on to a piece of driftwood just to be optimistic."

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal in Washington and Maya Gebeily in Beirut, additional reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Heather Timmons and Alistair Bell)