Court filing: Trump campaign 'encouraged rioting' at Huntington Place after 2020 vote

Former President Donald Trump's campaign "encouraged rioting" at the then-TCF Center in Detroit when absentee ballots were being counted after the Nov. 3, 2020, election, according to a new court filing by prosecutors working for Special Counsel Jack Smith.

Smith, has charged Trump with plotting to defraud the federal election process and other felonies related to the election and the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. He said in a Tuesday court filing that he will introduce evidence at trial that an employee of the Trump campaign, who is an unindicted co-conspirator in the case, exchanged Nov. 4 text messages with an unnamed Trump campaign attorney at the venue now called Huntington Place, formerly known as Cobo Hall and the TCF Center.

The texts from the Trump campaign employee "encouraged rioting and other methods of obstruction when (the Trump campaign employee) learned that the vote count was trending in favor of" President Joe Biden, the court filing said.

"The government will also show that around the time of these messages, an election official at the TCF Center observed that as Biden began to take the lead, a large number of untrained individuals flooded the TCF Center and began making illegitimate and aggressive challenges to the vote count," the filing said.

"Thereafter, Trump made repeated false claims regarding election activities at the TCF Center, when in truth his agent was seeking to cause a riot to disrupt the count."

Prosecutors said the evidence will be used to help show Trump knew he had lost the election and to show they had intent and motive to obstruct and overturn the election results.

In response to the filing, Trump spokesman Steven Cheung told the Washington Post that Smith is trying to interfere in next year’s presidential election, in which Trump is the leading candidate for the Republican nomination. Cheung also criticized the government for “trying to include claims that weren’t anywhere to be found” in the August indictment, the newspaper reported.

Trump “will not be deterred and will continue speaking truth to corrupt, weaponized power and law enforcement,” Cheung told the newspaper.

A record 167,000 absentee ballots were counted at Huntington Place by the evening of Nov. 4 as crowds shouted, "Stop the Count!" The scene included yelling, taunting, cheering, fists pounding on glass and unruly challengers being arrested by police.

Free Press staff writer Clara Hendrickson contributed to this report.

Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @paulegan4.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Filing: Trump agent 'encouraged rioting' in Detroit after 2020 vote