DONALD TRUMP would have been convicted of election interference if he had not been re-elected as United States president, the country’s Justice Department said today in a new report released to the US Congress.

The 137-page report, arriving just days before Mr Trump returns to office on January 20, brings fresh attention to the incoming president’s frantic but failed efforts to cling to power in 2020. 

Mr Trump was accused in the report of pressuring officials to reverse the result of the 2020 presidential election by knowingly spreading lies about election fraud and trying to exploit what some have described as a coup attempt at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Mr Trump has denied any wrongdoing and responded to the report on his Truth Social platform, claiming his innocence and calling special counsel Jack Smith, who wrote the report, “a lamebrain prosecutor who was unable to get his case tried before the election.”

He said: “The voters have spoken.”

Mr Smith said that his team “stood up for the rule of law,” writing that he stands fully behind his decision to bring criminal charges he believes would have resulted in a conviction had voters not returned Mr Trump to the White House.

“The throughline of all of Mr Trump’s criminal efforts was deceit — knowingly false claims of election fraud — and the evidence shows that Mr Trump used these lies as a weapon to defeat a federal government function foundational to the US’s democratic process,” the report states.

Mr Trump had been indicted in August 2023 on charges of working to overturn the election, but the case was delayed by appeals and ultimately significantly narrowed by a right-wing majority Supreme Court that held for the first time that former presidents enjoy sweeping immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts.

The Justice Department also has a long-standing policy that sitting presidents cannot face federal prosecution. 

The report said: “The department’s view that the constitution prohibits the continued indictment and prosecution of a president is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the government’s proof, or the merits of the prosecution, which the office stands fully behind.

“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.”

The special counsel also said that Mr Trump continually resorted “to intimidation and harassment during the investigation,” particularly through his use of social media.