WASHINGTON (AP) — Special Counsel Jack Smith said 2020 Election Interference Cases To Donald Trump, New indictment The bill is intended to provide relief to prosecutors after the Supreme Court ruled out the possibility of holding a trial before the November election.
The new indictment, filed Tuesday in Washington, contains the same criminal charges but: Supreme Court ruling Former presidents enjoy broad immunity from prosecution.
Here’s what you need to know about the incident and what might happen next.
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Why file a new indictment?
the Last month’s rulingThe Supreme Court’s conservative majority said former presidents have complete immunity from prosecution for official duties that fall within the “exclusive sphere of constitutional power.”
The Supreme Court also noted that former presidents have presumptive immunity for at least other official acts — though prosecutors could try to argue those charges were part of the indictment — but that former presidents are not immune from non-official, or personal, acts, the justices said.
As a result, the Supreme Court said Trump could not be charged with conduct related to his interactions with the Justice Department, effectively removing those charges from the indictment. The Supreme Court sent the case back to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to analyze what other charges may proceed to trial.
In rewriting the indictment, Smith’s team is aiming to make Chutkan’s job easier by removing references to alleged conduct that could be considered official conduct for which Trump could be exonerated.
What’s different?
The new indictment removes all reference to Trump’s interactions with Justice Department officials that prosecutors say he used to try to undo his election loss. Prosecutors allege that Trump tried to use the Justice Department to conduct a sham election fraud investigation and send letters to states falsely claiming it had found significant fraud.
The new indictment also redacts details of Trump’s communications with other federal officials, including the director of national intelligence and senior White House counsel, who prosecutors say told him his claims of election fraud were false.
The document also adds language to support prosecutors’ argument that the conduct underlying Trump’s lawsuit was carried out in his personal capacity as a candidate, not in his official capacity as president.
For example, the new indictment states that while Trump “had no official responsibility” for the congressional certification of the 2020 election, “as a candidate he had a personal interest in being named the winner of the election.”
The first page of the old indictment describes Trump as the 45th president of the United States. The new indictment says only that Trump was a “2020 candidate for president of the United States.”
Also removed are references to specific comments made by Trump from the White House, such as a Twitter video message recorded from the Rose Garden in which he asked his supporters: January 6, 2021 National Diet Building, The indictment retains comments made by Trump during a speech near the White House before the riot, which the indictment describes as a “campaign speech at a privately funded and privately organized political rally.”
Smith’s team noted that the indictment was handed down by a new grand jury that had never previously heard evidence in the case — a move likely intended to prevent Trump’s defense team from arguing that the entire case was tainted because the grand jury that delivered the original indictment heard evidence that the Supreme Court has said shouldn’t have been involved.
What has remained the same?
Trump is charged with four counts of obstruction of justice, conspiracy to obstruct justice, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and conspiracy to violate voting rights. He handed down a ruling in a separate case in June. Despite criticism that the Justice Department applied obstruction charges too broadly against the Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol, prosecutors have continued to pursue charges against Trump and have indicated they believe the charges will survive a review of his case.
The indictment asserts a range of charges against Trump, including that he pressured state officials to overturn the election results and participated in a plot orchestrated by his allies. Creating fraudulent electoral rolls in battleground states The indictment alleges that Trump “falsely claimed victory in those states, and was never formally responsible for convening the proper electors or for signing and mailing the certificates of their votes.”
There are also other assertions that: Trump tried to pressure Vice President Mike Pence They rejected the legitimate electoral votes and claimed that President Trump and his allies tried to exploit the chaos at the Capitol on January 6 to further delay the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory.
What is Trump saying?
Trump was predictably furious, slamming the new indictment on his Truth Social platform as a “desperate act” that has the same problems as the old indictment and should be dismissed immediately.
He also argued that Smith revised the original indictment to “avoid” the Supreme Court’s ruling, when the truth is quite the opposite: in reducing the case and charges, the Special Counsel’s Office was clearly seeking to follow, rather than circumvent, the spirit of the ruling.
Trump also argued that by filing the new indictments, the Justice Department violated an internal “policy” that prohibits any investigative activity that could affect a campaign within 60 days of an election.
But the reality is more complicated, and the policies he cited regarding prosecutions are more like informal, unspoken conventions than strict rules.
To be sure, longstanding Justice Department guidelines have warned against overt investigative activity so close to an election, and memos from attorneys general over the years have said prosecutors should never take visible steps, such as filing criminal charges or executing search warrants, with the intent to influence an election.
The purpose is to avoid raising new allegations against a candidate that the candidate may not have time to respond to, or that voters may not have time to fully consider before voting. But this guideline seems irrelevant here, because the revised indictment contains no new allegations against Trump for voters to consider, and in fact removes allegations against Trump.
What happened with the trial and what’s next?
The case has been referred to Judge Chutkan, but that doesn’t mean a trial will take place immediately. There will likely be months of legal battles over which charges relate to public servant conduct and should be removed from the indictment.
On Friday, Smith’s team and Trump’s legal team are expected to propose a timeline for the upcoming case in light of the Supreme Court’s decision, and the two sides are expected to return to Chutkan’s courtroom next week for the first time in months to discuss how to proceed.
Trump’s lawyers may also launch new efforts to have the lawsuit dismissed. His legal team has sought a delay at every stage. Criminal cases against him They may seek more time to assess the impact of the Supreme Court’s decision.
