Donald Trump indicted: Three takeaways from former president’s third indictment
Jack Birle
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Former President Donald Trump has been indicted for a third time this year, this time on charges related to his alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
With Trump’s indictment on four counts in Washington, D.C., he is accused of 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. Here are the three takeaways from the 45-page indictment from a grand jury after an investigation by special counsel Jack Smith.
DONALD TRUMP INDICTED: JACK SMITH JAN. 6 GRAND JURY VOTES FOR NEW INDICTMENT
Jan. 6 riot only the tip of the iceberg
In the lengthy indictment, Smith focuses more on Trump’s various attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election rather than the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
Most of the charging document details how Trump attempted to get state legislatures to change their state’s electoral votes from Joe Biden to himself but was unsuccessful. The attempts to overturn the election escalated to Trump allegedly asking then-Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certified electors at the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021. Pence explained he did not have the power to reject the certified results, saying his role as Senate president in that session was simply ceremonial.
The indictment does detail how Trump handled and reacted to the riot but stayed focused on efforts to get lawmakers to throw out Biden’s victory after the rioters had been expelled from the Capitol building.
Smith has his sights set on more than just Trump
The special counsel was charged with investigating Trump for his alleged mishandling of classified documents and his attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Smith’s investigation targeted the former president’s role in various schemes, as well as at least six accomplices.
In the indictment, Smith lists off Trump’s six alleged co-conspirators in his bid to stay in the White House, despite losing the 2020 presidential election.
While the six are not named in the charging document, five of the six can be identified based on details in the indictment. The five identifiable people are Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Sidney Powell, Jeffrey Clark, and Kenneth Chesebro. The sixth co-conspirator is described as a political consultant “who helped implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding.”
Only Trump was charged in the initial indictment filed on Tuesday, but as seen in the classified documents case, which was also handled by Smith, more can be charged with crimes alongside the former president.
States mentioned in the indictment are almost all key states in 2024
Smith mentions five states where Trump allegedly attempted to throw out results in his bid to remain president: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
The five states were the deciding factors for the 2020 election, making up 73 of the 538 electoral votes at the time, with Trump attempting to get officials in those states to overturn victories by Biden. Trump won all five of those states in 2016 but failed to win them four years later.
Those states appear to be the key electoral votes again in the 2024 election. Trump is currently the front-runner for the Republican nomination for next year’s presidential election and will be fighting for those now-71 electoral votes.
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This is the third case in which Trump has been indicted this year, and it is his second federal indictment. The former president was indicted in Manhattan on charges related to business records falsification in March and in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida for charges related to his alleged mishandling of classified documents. Smith also led the investigation in the classified documents case. Trump is the first president, current or former, to be indicted.
The former president is scheduled to appear before Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya at a courthouse in Washington on Thursday at 4 p.m.