Donald Trump has been indicted by a federal grand jury on four criminal counts in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election leading up to the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.
“Shortly after election day, the Defendant also pursued unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the election results,” the indictment states.
The newest case against Trump strikes at what’s seen as the former president’s most serious betrayal of his constitutional duties, when his efforts to remain in the White House after losing the 2020 election sought to undermine US democracy and the long-held American tradition of a peaceful transfer of presidential power.
The plot to overturn the 2020 election shattered presidential norms and culminated in an unthinkable physical assault on the Capitol on January 6, as Congress met to validate President Joe Biden’s victory. Even before that, Trump engaged in an unprecedented pressure campaign toward state election workers and lawmakers, Justice Department officials and even his own vice president to persuade them to throw out the 2020 results.
Trump has been summoned to appear before a magistrate judge in Washington, DC, federal court at 4 p.m. ET on Thursday, the Justice Department announced.
The four counts are: conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights.
Six unindicted co-conspirators were included. Among the six are four unnamed attorneys who allegedly aided Trump in his effort to subvert the 2020 election results. Also included is one unnamed Justice Department official who “attempted to use the Justice Department to open sham election crime investigations and influence state legislatures with knowingly false claims of election fraud.”
Smith also mentions an unnamed “political consultant who helped implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding.”
Smith’s move to bring charges will test whether the criminal justice system can be used to hold Trump to account for his post-election conduct after he was acquitted in his impeachment trial related to his actions that day.
The indictment is the second time in two months that Smith has brought charges against Trump. In June, Trump was charged with retention of classified documents and conspiracy with a top aide to hide them from the government and his own attorneys. And separately in March, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg indicted Trump on state charges of falsifying business records.
Trump has pleaded not guilty in both cases – and is likely to do so again when he’s arraigned on the latest charges.
The new special counsel indictment comes as Trump remains the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. The first two indictments have done little to impact his standing in the race.
Trump’s March indictment marked the first time in US history that a former president had faced criminal charges. Now there are three separate, concurrent cases where the president is facing felony allegations, which are all going to play out as Trump seeks to return to the White House in 2024 following his loss to Biden in 2020.
Fake electors plot hatched after 2020 election was unprecedented attempt to subvert Electoral College The so-called fake electors plot was an unprecedented attempt to subvert the Electoral College process by replacing electors that Biden had rightfully won with illegitimate GOP electors.
Trump supporters in seven key states met on December 14, 2020, and signed fake certificates, falsely proclaiming that Trump actually won their state and they were the rightful electors. They submitted these fake certificates to Congress and to the National Archives, in anticipation that their false claims would be embraced during the Electoral College certification on January 6, 2021.
At the time, their actions were largely dismissed as an elaborate political cosplay. But it eventually became clear that this was part of an orchestrated plan.
Senior Trump campaign officials orchestrated the fake electors plot and directly oversaw the state-by-state mechanics – linking Trump’s campaign apparatus to what originally looked like a hapless political stunt by local Trump supporters.
Federal investigators have subpoenaed the fake electors across the country, sent FBI agents to interview witnesses about their conduct, and recently granted immunity to two fake electors from Nevada to secure their grand jury testimony.
In Michigan, the state’s attorney general charged the 16 fake electors who signed certificates falsely claiming Trump won Michigan in the 2020 election with multiple felonies. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is also expected to ask a grand jury this month to bring charges related to efforts in Georgia to subvert the election results.
I think it depends on how you’re counting. I think the number of charges he’s been indicted on is nearing 80. There’s the NY fraud case, the stolen secret documents case, and now this election interference case. I’m not sure what else is pending.
But you also have another defamation case for E Jean Carol, who successfully sued him a few months ago after which he doubled down. I think I remember a few other cases going forward. On the other hand, cases he tried to bring against companies like CNN have been dismissed.
It’s good he’s getting his fans to pay for his legal fees under the guise of still being able to win the 2020 election, because every dollar Trump puts into a lawyer’s pocket is one less that goes to elect republicans to congress or state office. He’s basically setting piles of GOP money on fire while they watch.
State charges from Georgia are likely coming this week, too, from all the recent headlines.
I’ve lost track of the number of indictments. I think we’re at about 80-ish? I’m really hoping we can get it to a nice round 100 if we can get additional charges for perjury, violating court orders, and the like.
But Georgia is on my mind.
Three indictments so far, each of which cover multiple crimes that were part of the same general activity. Multiple instances of the same crime, called charges, are totaled as separate “counts”. For example, the latest indictment has 4 charges of 4 different crimes, each of which only has one count. Compare that to the second indictment in the secret documents case, which has 31 counts of the same crime (“willful retention of national defense information”), plus a few more counts of additional crimes.
You are correct that there are currently 78* individual instances of crime which the former President has been arrested and charged for committing. That was a crazy sentence to type, but here we are.
Hopefully that helps make a bit more sense.
* Sorry for paywalled article, but it was the only source I could find quickly to confirm the current charge total.
Yep, that helps!
Of course, Georgia is expecting to make an announcement by the end of the month.
That money is still going somewhere. The donors are getting poorer and whoever is receiving the legal fees is getting more powerful.
Plus the lawyers defending Trump must seriously be bottom feeders. It’s not the kind of lawyers that is good for society.
As much as I hate Trump, attorneys need to be willing to represent everyone in order for us to actually have a working justice system. It might be nice to imagine Trump trying to bumble through representing himself and fucking it up royally, but it’s less fun when it’s some poor sod who’s been wrongfully accused, but who local attorneys are prejudiced against.