In his final report, Jack Smith says Trump has used 'intimidation and harassment' to get his way

In November, as Donald Trump and his transition team worked to line up support for his cabinet nominees ahead of the confirmation hearings that began Tuesday with defense secretary pick Pete Hegseth, Team Trump had a message for lawmakers: Support us or else.

ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl reported that one senior Trump adviser said the message to lawmakers is, "If you are on the wrong side of the vote, you're buying yourself a primary. And there's a guy named Elon Musk who is going to finance it."

Even in the rough-and-tumble world of Washington politics, it was an unusually brazen threat. But special counsel Jack Smith, in his final report on his election interference investigation into Trump, said in the report that's the way Trump operates.

Smith's report, released early Tuesday morning, alleged what Smith said were the unique challenges he faced in prosecuting a former-and-future president who is willing to resort to "intimidation and harassment" to get his way.

According to Smith, Trump was willing to use social media, his financial status, and his position as a former president to try to "command strong loyalty" from witnesses in the case -- thereby intensifying the challenges already associated with the investigation.

"In a corruption or conspiracy investigation, it is not unusual for a subject or target of the investigation to continue to wield significant influence over, or command strong loyalty from, potential witnesses, often complicating the ability of prosecutors to obtain evidence. That dynamic was amplified in this case given Mr. Trump's political and financial status, and the prospect of his future election to the presidency," Smith wrote about the president-elect.

Trump pleaded not guilty in 2023 to charges of undertaking a "criminal scheme" to overturn the results of the 2020 election, before the case was dismissed following his reelection due to a longstanding Justice Department policy prohibiting the prosecution of a sitting president. But while his criminal cases have largely gone away, Smith highlighted that Trump has long been able to utilize social media to intimidate others and achieve his goals.

Trump wasted no time after the election, taking to social media to claim a mandate based on what he called a "landside" victory -- despite the election results being close.

"America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate," Trump told Time magazine in December.

According to Smith's report, Trump's "willingness to use his influence and following on social media" to target individuals presented a "significant challenge" to prosecutors on Smith's team, as some of those statements materialized into real threats and harassment from the former president's supporters.

"Mr. Trump's resort to intimidation and harassment during the investigation was not new, as demonstrated by his actions during the charged conspiracies," Smith wrote, saying that Trump -- who denied all allegations that he unlawfully sought to overturn the election results -- used the same tactics to pressure lawmakers after losing the 2020 election and to attack election workers who he baselessly accused of misconduct.

"As one of the women explained," Smith wrote of one such election worker, "'When someone as powerful as the President of the United States eggs on a mob, that mob will come.'"