LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — Prosecutors allege former President Donald Trump “resorted to crimes” after losing the 2020 election, including spreading lies about the Nevada election process, even as Republican leadership warned those claims were unsubstantiated, according to documents released Wednesday.
In the newly unsealed 165-page court filing, federal prosecutors argue the former president is not entitled to immunity from prosecution, saying: “his scheme was fundamentally a private one.”
The filing was submitted by special counsel Jack Smith’s team following a U.S. Supreme Court opinion that conferred broad immunity on former presidents and narrowed the scope of the prosecution.
“When the defendant lost the 2020 presidential election, he resorted to crimes to try to stay in office,” prosecutors wrote. “With private co-conspirators, the defendant launched a series of increasingly desperate plans to overturn the legitimate election results in seven states that he had lost — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.”
Prosecutors said the former president and others then “knowingly [spread] false claims of election fraud,” interfering with the Electoral College, obstructing Congress and “[conspiring] against the rights of millions of Americans to vote and have their votes counted,” documents said.
Trump “began to plant the seeds” of a possible election defeat in the months before November, prosecutors said. In July 2020, though he voted by mail earlier that year, Trump suggested the election would “be the most inaccurate [and] fraudulent election in history.” While speaking at the Republican National Convention that August, Mr. Trump said, “[t]he only way they can take this election away from us is if this is a rigged election,” prosecutors added.
The newly released filings add former Vice President Mike Pence encouraged the former president to accept the results, adding Pence “had seen no evidence of outcome-determinative fraud in the election,” documents said.
In Nevada, prosecutors cite the former president’s claims about signature verification machines in Clark County and allegations of double votes, documents said.
On Nov. 17, 2020, the Trump campaign and the Nevada Republican Party filed its then-fifth election-related lawsuit, despite no evidence of fraud and the fact that then-Secretary of State Barbara Cevagske, a Republican, certified the election. The lawsuit cited the signature-matching machines and claims that non-residents and the deceased voted.
The claims included that more than 42,000 people in Nevada voted twice and 20,000 voted without a Nevada mailing address. The evidence, which included 20 binders worth of material, was submitted to the court under seal, meaning it could not be viewed publicly. At a news conference on Nov. 5, 2020, where surrogates from the Trump campaign announced a federal lawsuit, which was later dropped, speakers told reporters to find the evidence for themselves. That lawsuit was later dismissed voluntarily. During the sole hearing in that case, a lawyer provided no evidence of fraud and did not verbally bring up any evidence to the federal judge.
All of their allegations lost in court across several lawsuits, including the one citing out-of-state residents voting in the election. The voters were military families and students who were legally allowed to vote in Nevada.
On Nov. 19, 2020, a Republican National Committee lawyer sent an email to a spokesperson, saying, “Just FYI that I don’t believe the claims in the contest regarding dead voters, those voting from out-of-state, etc. are substantiated,” according to prosecutors. “We are working with the campaign on a data-matching project and those numbers are going to be a lot lower than what the NV people have come up with. They are also targeting our military voters. To be frank, this contest has little chance of succeeding.”
On Dec. 4, a judge dismissed the case, saying there was “no credible or reliable evidence” of fraud. The Nevada Supreme Court later upheld the lower court’s ruling. On Jan. 6, Trump “repeated multiple claims explicitly rejected” by the courts, prosecutors said.
President Joe Biden won Nevada’s six electoral votes by 33,000 votes – or about 2%. About 48% of voters chose to vote by mail, according to the Nevada Secretary of State’s Office. On the same day of the state-sanctioned Electoral College vote, the Nevada Republican Party’s six electors signed paperwork signaling their support for Trump in a symbolic ceremony devoid of any legal merit. Their actions led to state charges but a judge has since tossed over jurisdictional issues.
In 2022’s gubernatorial election, Republican Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo beat Sisolak by a little more than 15,000 votes – or 1.5%. About 51% of voters chose to cast a ballot by mail for that election, according to the Nevada Secretary of State’s Office. No party filed an election-related lawsuit after the 2022 election nor claimed fraud though the voting system was essentially identical.
Trump made no attempts after 2020 to contact Cegavske or former Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak, prosecutors said. In addition, members of the former president’s administration, including former Attorney General Bill Barr, said there was no evidence of widespread fraud.
The Nevada Attorney General’s Office has charged a handful of people for voting twice. The 8 News Now Investigators first reported Donald “Kirk” Hartle, a registered Republican, was facing two charges relating to the 2020 election for mailing in his deceased wife’s ballot. Hartle later pleaded guilty to one charge of voting more than once in the same election. Rosemarie Hartle’s ballot was one of two cited by Nevada Republicans and national party leaders as evidence of voter fraud in Nevada.
In 2020, the 8 News Now Investigators compared state data and other information provided by the White House and compiled by the Heritage Foundation regarding noncitizens and illegal voting. Out of more than seven million votes cast in Nevada elections since 2008, two votes are known to have been cast illegally. A person who was not in the country legally cast one vote in the 2008 general election and voted again in 2010.
As 8 News Now reported earlier this summer, county election officials removed nearly 140,000 voters as part of routine maintenance. More than 100,000 voters became inactive in Clark County alone. Republicans applauded the move.
Last month, the Trump campaign and Republicans filed a new lawsuit, which claims thousands of noncitizens are registered to vote and may have voted in 2020. Cegavske previously debunked the claim, saying the noncitizens likely became naturalized before the election.
Counties must audit and verify the signatures on mail-in ballots before the vote is counted, according to law. Nevada law also allows for a person to cure their ballot if the signature on their ballot does not match their registration. The laws, plus the fact that all of Clark County’s votes are tabulated in one place, mean the counting process can take several days.
Voters can check their registration and opt in or out of receiving a mail-in ballot on Clark County’s website or with the Nevada Secretary of State’s Office.
New voters wishing to receive a mail-in ballot must register to vote by Oct. 22. Voters registering after Oct. 23 must vote in person. New voters can also register in person up to and on Election Day. Voters in Clark County do not have to go to a specific precinct to vote in person. Nevada’s election machines do not connect to the internet and have no modem.
The purpose of Wednesday’s brief was to convince U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan that the offenses charged in the indictment are private, rather than official, acts and can therefore remain part of the indictment as the case moves forward.
Trump’s “steady stream of disinformation” in the weeks after the election culminated in his speech at the Ellipse on the morning of Jan. 6, 2021, in which Trump “used these lies to inflame and motivate the large and angry crowd of his supporters to march to the Capitol and disrupt the certification proceeding,” prosecutors wrote.
In a debate Tuesday night, Trump’s running mate, Republican Ohio Sen. JD Vance, refused to say the former president lost the 2020 election.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
