Former President Donald Trump was criminally charged Tuesday in connection with his efforts to reverse his loss to President Joe Biden in 2020.
via: Washington Post
The four-count, 45-page indictment accuses Trump of three distinct conspiracies, charging that he conspired to defraud the U.S., conspired to obstruct an official proceeding and conspired against people’s rights.
“Despite having lost, the Defendant was determined to remain in power,” the indictment charges.
A spokesman for the former president, Steven Cheung, accused the current administration of trying to interfere with the 2024 election by targeting the current GOP frontrunner.
About 5 p.m., reporters observed a prosecutor with special counsel Jack Smith’s office and the foreperson of a grand jury that has been active for many months examining the events surrounding Jan. 6 deliver the indictment to a magistrate judge in federal court in Washington, D.C.
That grand jury panel gathered Tuesday, and left the courthouse in the afternoon. The indictment is the first known charge or charges to be filed in the special counsel probe of the machinations that led up to the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol, and its aftermath.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Moxila A. Upadhyaya accepted the grand jury return, saying, “I do have one indictment return before me, and I have reviewed the paperwork in connection with this indictment.”
The indictment could mark a major new phase in Smith’s investigation of the former president and his aides and allies, coming nearly two months after Trump and his longtime valet were indicted for allegedly mishandling classified documents and scheming to prevent government officials from retrieving them.
Trump, who has pleaded not guilty in the documents case, denies all wrongdoing related to the 2020 election as well. He announced on social media on July 18 that his lawyers had been told he was a target in the election-focused probe.
Smith was tapped in November to take charge of the both high-profile investigations, after Trump launched his 2024 presidential election campaign and Attorney General Merrick Garland — an appointee of President Biden — concluded that an independent prosecutor should oversee the probes.
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