Donald Trump indictment: Who are the six co-conspirators in Jack Smith Jan. 6 case?
Ashley Oliver
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Special counsel Jack Smith identified six “co-conspirators” in a grand jury indictment delivered Tuesday related to former President Donald Trump’s alleged attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Smith charged Trump with conspiracy to defraud the United States and to obstruct an official proceeding, among other charges, and alleged Trump also “enlisted co-conspirators to assist him in his criminal efforts to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election and retain power.”
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Smith did not name the alleged co-conspirators, but details in the 45-page indictment appear to point to the below five individuals. The identity of the sixth remains unclear.
1. Rudy Giuliani
Giuliani, former New York City mayor and Trump attorney, is described in the indictment as “willing to spread knowingly false claims and pursue strategies” that Trump’s campaign attorneys would not.
Giuliani presented cases for alleged election fraud in battleground states in 2020 on behalf of Trump. The indictment details Giuliani’s election-related visits to Arizona, Georgia, and Pennsylvania.
In Georgia, for instance, Giuliani provided lengthy testimony to the state’s Senate Judiciary Committee, where he alleged there was “more than ample evidence” that the Georgia election was a “sham.”
Smith, in the indictment, quotes Trump reacting to it, writing on social media, “Wow! Blockbuster testimony taking place right now in Georgia. Ballot stuffing by Dems when Republicans were forced to leave the large counting room.”
Giuliani also was a top voice claiming an infamous surveillance video clip of State Farm Arena in Atlanta showed election officials pulling ballots out of suitcases late at night. He, at one point, according to the indictment, called the clip the “tip of the iceberg.” The claim was later thoroughly debunked through a state investigation.
Senior Trump campaign staff repeatedly expressed frustration with Giuliani in internal communications, characterizing his claims as indefensible, according to the indictment.
2. John Eastman
Eastman is an attorney who is described in the indictment as having “devised and attempted to implement a strategy to leverage the Vice President’s ceremonial role overseeing the certification proceeding to obstruct the certification of the presidential election.”
Eastman is best known for crafting memos detailing how then-Vice President Mike Pence, who would preside over the Senate’s certification of the election, could defy the Electoral Count Act in favor of Trump.
Trump, Eastman, and Pence participated in a meeting two days before the certification, where the former two pressured Pence to reject the electoral votes, the indictment stated.
“Bottom line—won every state by 100,000s of votes,” Trump said during the meeting, according to the indictment.
3. Sidney Powell
Powell, an attorney, filed a lawsuit that became known as “the Kraken” in Georgia after the election in which she and attorney Lin Wood claimed “massive fraud” had occurred through Dominion Voting Systems voting machines.
The indictment stated that Trump “privately acknowledged to others [Powell’s claims] sounded ‘crazy.’ Nonetheless, the Defendant embraced and publicly amplified Co-Conspirator 3’s disinformation.”
4. Jeffrey Clark
Clark, who worked in the Justice Department, attempted to use Trump’s DOJ “to open sham election crime investigations and influence state legislatures with knowingly false claims of election fraud,” the indictment stated.
Trump had considered promoting Clark to replace then-acting Attorney General Jeff Rosen in the aftermath of the 2020 election. Clark drafted a letter from the DOJ to state officials saying there existed “evidence of significant irregularities” in various state elections. Clark allegedly “tried to coerce” DOJ leadership to sign off on the letter, per the indictment.
5. Kenneth Chesebro
Chesebro, an attorney, helped to create and push for the implementation of what the indictment described as a “corrupt plan to subvert the federal government function by stopping Biden electors’ votes from being counted and certified.”
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Chesebro pushed for the plan’s execution in six battleground states and later New Mexico.
6. Unnamed “co-conspirator 6”
This individual is identified in the indictment as a political consultant “who helped implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding.”