Smith wrote in the 174-page report, released by the Department of Justice in the early hours of Tuesday morning, that his team “stood up for the rule of law” by bringing the two historic criminal indictments against Trump over the 2020 election and the president-elect’s handling of classified documents. Smith noted that the charging decisions rested with him.

“I want it to be clear that the ultimate decision to bring charges against Mr. Trump was mine,” Smith wrote. “It is a decision I stand behind fully.”

He added that any notion that his team of prosecutors was influenced by others in the Department of Justice or by the Biden administration was baseless.

“And to all who know me well, the claim from Mr. Trump that my decisions as a prosecutor were influenced or directed by the Biden administration or other political actors is, in a word, laughable,” Smith wrote.

The report was the first of a two-volume document, each volume corresponding to the two cases against Trump. The second volume, pertaining to the classified documents case, remains confidential, but prosecutors have urged Judge Aileen Cannon to allow them to release it to certain members of Congress.

In volume one, Smith laid out why he decided to bring four felony charges against Trump, alleging he conspired with six others to defraud the United States and interfere with the 2020 election certification by, in part, inciting a violent riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Smith revealed for the first time that his office had weighed charging Trump with an “Insurrection Act” violation, invoking a buzzword Trump’s detractors have seized upon to underscore the violent elements of the Jan. 6 riot, which left dozens of police officers injured. Smith said prosecutors decided against bringing the charge because of the risks that came with applying a “long-dormant” statute.

Many of the other details in the report were made public through court filings during the past year.

The report came days after Smith resigned from the DOJ and after a week’s worth of last-ditch legal challenges from Trump and his co-defendants in Florida, who fought to keep the report under wraps ahead of the inauguration.

Cannon, a Trump appointee, had temporarily blocked its release last week, but on Monday, she cleared the way for Garland to publish volume one of the report. Cannon set a hearing for Friday to listen to arguments over the release of volume two.

When Smith first brought the election case in August 2023, Trump’s critics had celebrated Smith’s sweeping charges. They wanted to see Trump punished for his perceived role in spurring the Jan. 6 riot and for his prolific false claims that widespread fraud had tainted the 2020 election results.

However, the indictment unraveled in the face of aggressive legal challenges from Trump’s defense team, who argued at every turn that the charges should be tossed out.

The Supreme Court’s decision last summer to narrow the charge of obstructing an official proceeding was a boon to Trump’s defense, but the high court’s presidential immunity decision had even greater implications and could have been the death knell for the case had it not already been terminated because of Trump’s election win.

Smith wrote in his report that he was confident he would have secured a conviction in the case had he not been forced to withdraw his charges because of the DOJ’s policy that it does not prosecute sitting presidents.

“Indeed, but 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 wrote.

Trump blasted Smith in a Truth Social post Tuesday morning, accusing the special counsel of using cherry-picked information from the former Jan. 6 congressional committee to craft his report.

“Deranged Jack Smith was unable to successfully prosecute the Political Opponent of his ‘boss,’ Crooked Joe Biden, so he ends up writing yet another ‘Report’ based on information that the Unselect Committee of Political Hacks and Thugs ILLEGALLY DESTROYED AND DELETED, because it showed how totally innocent I was, and how completely guilty Nancy Pelosi, and others, were,” Trump wrote.