This is the third criminal charge in four months and it is historic. “The defendant, Donald J. Trump, was the 45th President of the United States and a candidate for re-election in 2020. The defendant lost the 2020 presidential election (sic)”, establishes the first point of the indictment of accusation. This Tuesday evening, August 1, the prosecution of the world’s leading power accused a former president of trying to stay in power despite losing the 2020 presidential election, two weeks after receiving the letter l advising that he was under investigation.
A grand jury voted to indict him on “conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to deprive voters of their right to vote, and conspiracy to obstruct a legal process,” as the special prosecutor put it. Jack Smith at a press conference. “The attack on our nation’s Capitol on January 6, 2021 was an unprecedented attack on the seat of American democracy,” he added. It was fueled by lies from the defendant, targeted and obstructed a fundamental function of the United States government: the national process of collecting, counting and certifying presidential election results.”
They have also created parallel electoral colleges (elected in each state, responsible for voting for their party’s candidate in Washington on January 6) in key states, in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania , Wisconsin. These great parallel voters signed false voting certificates.
Another means denounced, the pressure exerted on Mike Pence so that he modifies the result of the election on January 6 during the certification of the votes of the electors, which the Constitution does not allow him. This pressure was exerted on some elected officials as the session adjourned when Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on January 6 to vote against the election of Joe Biden. Smith also attempts to counter the argument that Trump acted in good faith, sincerely believing he had won the election, with his allegations falling under free speech. The complaint details the number of his relatives and advisers who repeated to him that there had been no electoral fraud. She therefore calls Trump’s repeated claims of his stolen victory “lies.”
Jack Smith recalled, in his complaint and at a press conference, the violence of the January 6 assault: “The men and women of law enforcement who defended the Capitol on January 6 are heroes. They risked their lives to defend who we are as a country and as a people. But the charges mainly cover actions taken before that date to change the outcome of the election, which ended on January 6. As expected, Jack Smith did not include any charges related to Trump’s speech that morning, despite the Jan. 6 Inquiry recommending that he be indicted for inciting and aiding insurrection. In a park near the White House, Donald Trump had encouraged his supporters to march on the Capitol. “We have to fight like crazy. And if you don’t fight like crazy, you won’t have a country anymore,” he said.
The commission also cited the tweet in which Trump attacked Vice President Mike Pence for not having the “courage” to change the election outcome in some states. The crowd had shouted, “Hang Mike Pence!” and some had erected a false gallows gallows. Separately, as his supporters fought the police to invade the Capitol, Trump for 187 minutes refused to call on them to retreat and followed the events on Fox News. But one of the most fiercely defended rights in the United States is the First Amendment, which establishes freedom of speech, which Trump’s lawyers are said to have pushed. That’s why Jack Smith refrained from indicting Trump on his morning speech.
This will not prevent his lawyers from pleading the 1st Amendment anyway, to counter the existing counts. On CNN Tuesday night, his attorney John Lauro called the indictment “an attack on free speech and political advocacy.” A Trump 2024 campaign statement posted on Truth Social even calls the accusation reminiscent of “1930s Nazi Germany, the former Soviet Union, and other authoritarian, dictatorial regimes.”
Donald Trump’s campaign, in a statement he posted to Truth, says the indictment is “reminiscent of 1930s Nazi Germany, the former Soviet Union and other authoritarian, dictatorial regimes” @LePoint pic .twitter.com/Uka7RPk0Aq
The commission had also suggested seditious conspiracy. It has been applied in the trials of defendants seen as instigators of the Capitol assault, particularly for certain leaders of the Oath Keepers militia and the far-right Proud Boys group, but this charge involves prove the intent of the use of force. Jack Smith showed, with the case of the classified documents, that he preferred to proceed with the indictment as soon as he could, even if it meant adding counts and defendants later.
Donald Trump’s legal problems don’t stop there. He is awaiting a fourth indictment in Georgia, for his attempts to overturn the election in that state, in particular his appeal to the Secretary of State to “find 11,780” votes. District Attorney Fani Willis revealed she was “ready” and barricades appeared around Fulton County Court, indicating the indictment could drop in the coming days.
Notably, in the absence of incitement to insurrection, none of these counts renders Donald Trump ineligible. He can run for president in 2024. The Constitution only specifies that the candidate must be over 35, be an American citizen born in the United States and have lived there for more than fourteen years. Trump could run from prison, a scenario that has happened twice in US history: Eugene V. Debs in 1920 and Lyndon LaRouche in 1992. These indictments make his candidacy even more vital for him: Winning and pardoning himself, or appointing a judge to pardon him, would become Trump’s best chance of getting out of jail.
The charge that exposes him to the maximum penalty is obstruction of a legal process, or twenty years in prison. After the jury vote, the Crown requests a sentence and the judge will decide the length of the sentence. Trump is due to appear before Magistrate Moxila Upadhyaya at 4 p.m. Thursday, which he can do virtually. The case was subsequently assigned to Obama-appointed Federal Judge Tanya Chutkan. Like most federal court judges in Washington, she tried participants on January 6 and is known for awarding harsher sentences than those sought by the prosecution. For now, the New York trial is scheduled for March and the Fort Pierce, Fla., trial in May is expected to be delayed by the addition of new defendants. Jack Smith clarified that he would ask for “a speedy trial so that the evidence can be considered by a court and tried by a jury of citizens”. Trump is supposed to campaign at the same time for 2024.
