Special counsel Jack Smith delivered a powerful indictment of former president Donald Trump on Tuesday for his alleged scheming and actions to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
Former President Donald Trump was criminally charged Tuesday with illegally conspiring to overturn his election loss to President Joe Biden in 2020., following a sprawling investigation into his attempts to cling to power after losing the presidency.
The indictment accuses Trump of three conspiracies: . Trump was also charged with a fourth count of obstructing or attempting to obstruct an official proceeding.
The first charge alleges a conspiracy to defraud the U.S. “by using dishonesty, fraud and deceit to obstruct the nation’s process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election,” according to the Justice Department.
The second details “a conspiracy to impede” the Jan. 6, 2021, congressional proceeding where the election results were certified.
The third was “a conspiracy against the right to vote and to have that vote counted,” said DOJ in a statement.
Trump was also charged with a fourth count of obstructing or attempting to obstruct an official proceeding.
The charges signify an extraordinary moment in US history: a former president, in the midst of a campaign to return to the White House, being charged over attempts to use the levers of government power to subvert democracy and remain in office against the will of the voters.
In sweeping terms, the indictment described how Trump and six co-conspirators employed a variety of means to reverse his defeat in the election almost from the moment voting ended.
It depicted how Trump promoted false claims of fraud, sought to bend the Justice department toward supporting those claims, oversaw a scheme his vice president, Mike pence, to use the fake electors to subvert the certification of the election at a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6 2021, that was cut sort by violence at the Capitol.
The indictment did not name the co-conspirators, but the descriptions of their behavior match publicly known episodes involving prominent people around Trump. They are Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Sidney Powell, Jeffrey Clark and John Cheesman.
This is the third indictment for the twice impeached, sexual assaulter (and likely rapist) leader of the Republican Party. It is a sad day for the country but a good day for democracy and the rule of law. We will be severely tested in the upcoming months whether we can hold on to our democracy for ourselves and our children. Are we up to the task?! We must be.