Special Counsel Jack Smith says Donald Trump's team discussed throwing out 300,000 Philly votes in 2020

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

56% : But Smith said Trump sought to advance similar efforts elsewhere, including by pressuring Georgia's top voting official to "find" votes that would tip that state in his favor, and urging then-Vice President Mike Pence to "discard the legitimate electoral certificates that reflected millions of citizens' votes in the targeted states.
52% : "The plan's inclusion in Smith's report served as another reminder of the key role Pennsylvania played in the 2020 election and a demonstration of how the state became a central focus for Trump and his lawyers as they sought to contest Joe Biden's win of its crucial 19 electoral votes.
38% : As Donald Trump sought to retain the presidency after losing the 2020 election, his legal team considered whether they could take a dramatic step to manipulate the results in his favor -- and simply throw out hundreds of thousands of votes that had been legally cast in Philadelphia.
37% : The plot was part of a multipronged effort to keep Trump in power, according to special counsel Jack Smith, who provided details about it in a report released early Tuesday.
34% : As for the plot to throw out Philadelphia votes, Smith used that anecdote to demonstrate how Trump and those around him had sought to "effectively cast aside legitimate votes in a manner that would have deprived citizens of their right to vote and have their votes counted.
32% : The scheme to cast aside legitimate votes in Philadelphia was part of a multipronged effort to keep Trump in power, according to special counsel Jack Smith.
32% : "Trump responded on social media by blasting Smith, calling him "deranged" and saying his efforts to secure a conviction were politically motivated.
27% : With Trump poised to return to the White House next week after winning the 2024 election, Smith said it was impossible to pursue the case further due to the longstanding Justice Department policy against prosecuting sitting presidents.
25% : Biden, a Democrat, defeated Trump by about 80,000 votes in Pennsylvania that year, delivering him a key battleground state in a close and consequential contest.
23% : Trump has denied that, and said the prosecution of those who participated in the riot has been corrupt and unfair.
21% : The release of Smith's 137-page report marks the end of his attempt to convict Trump for trying to subvert the 2020 election results.
7% : "Jack is a lamebrain prosecutor who was unable to get his case tried before the Election, which I won in a landslide," Trump wrote.Smith had revealed in previous court filings the extent to which Trump's various plots to remain in the White House four years ago intersected with Pennsylvania: Trump's team sought to recruit "fake electors" to disrupt congressional certification of the vote, he said; involved several prominent state Republican operatives in that effort; and relied on a Kensington native to play a key role in sowing mistrust in the results.More than 100 Pennsylvanians have also been charged with storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 -- an attempt to block certification of Biden's victory, and one that Smith said Trump provoked by encouraging violence against his perceived opponents.

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.