John Jefferson
A newly assembled grand jury has indicted Donald Trump, again, for his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, after the Supreme Court ruled that the former president has some “immunity” from prosecution.
The superseding indictment — which was presented to a new grand jury that had not previously heard evidence in the case — retains the same four core charges against the former president, but special counsel Jack Smith notes that the indictment “reflects the Government’s efforts to respect and implement the Supreme Court’s holdings and remand instructions” from the high court’s landmark decision on presidential immunity last month.
The 36-page indictment — nine pages shorter than the initial document — is Smith’s attempt to navigate a Supreme Court decision that affirmed that a president is “absolutely” immune from criminal prosecution for actions that stem from official duties in office, and granted “presumptive” immunity for actions in the “outer perimeter” of those duties.
Prosecutors now appear to be downplaying any connection between Trump’s “official” duties and his alleged crusade to unlawfully reverse his election loss.
The new indictment notes that Mike Pence, for example, was not only vice president but also Trump’s “running mate” when the former president launched a pressure campaign to block the certification of election results on January 6, 2021, when a Trump-fueld mob stormed the Capitol and derailed a joint session of Congress assembled to certify Joe Biden’s victory.
It also stresses that Trump’s rally in Washington DC that day was “privately-funded” and “privately-organized,” and that Trump used his Twitter account for “personal purposes.”
A section in the original indictment that accused Trump of trying to “leverage” the Department of Justice to pressure state officials to reject election results also has been removed, along with references to government officials who repeatedly told Trump that there was no merit whatsoever to his bogus narrative of widespread election fraud that he used to justify his spurious efforts to throw out results.
But the new indictment largely aligns with the narrative outlined in the original charging document — tracing how Trump, allegedly, knowingly relied on false claims surrounding the election to pressure state officials to promote false slates of electors to obstruct the outcome, then failed to stop his supporters from breaking into the Capitol to do it by force.
He is charged with four crimes, including conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights.
The case was frozen for eight months after Trump’s attempt to toss out the charges on “immunity” grounds made its way to the Supreme Court.
Trump is also relying on the Supreme Court’s ruling in his attempt to throw out a verdict in his hush money trial in New York, where a jury convicted him on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records tied to a scheme to unlawfully influence the outcome of the 2016 election.
This is a developing story
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