WASHINGTON – A federal grand jury indicted former President Donald Trump on Tuesday for conspiring to steal the 2020 election from President Joe Biden, including the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021, that a prosecutor described “an unprecedented assault” on democracy.
“It was fueled by lies – lies by the defendant,” special counsel Jack Smith said as the indictment was unsealed.
Trump, now facing his third criminal case, denied wrongdoing and denounced the indictment as an attempt to derail his 2024 presidential candidacy.
Trump indicted in Jan. 6 probe: What we know so far
- The indictment details multiple strategies Trump and his allies employed to overturn his election loss.
- One of the methods Trump used to steal the election details his “fake elector” scheme to overturn President Joe Biden’s victories in key battleground states.
- Trump also deliberately deceived his supporters and directed them to march to the Capitol in an effort to pressure former Vice President Mike Pence and lawmakers to reject the certification of electors, the indictment alleges.
- Six co-conspirators are referenced in the indictment but are unnamed. Among those co-conspirators is Jeffrey Clark, a high-ranking Justice Department official in the Trump administration.
Four counts against Trump
The indictment handed down in a federal court in Washington, D.C., listed four counts against Trump: 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.
The indictment was unsealed less than an hour after Trump sought to preempt prosecutors by announcing to supporters that he expected to be charged.
“Why didn’t they do this 2.5 years ago?” Trump posted on his Truth Social account. “Why did they wait so long? Because they wanted to put it right in the middle of my campaign. Prosecutorial Misconduct!”
Why was Trump investigated?
Smith has been investigating Trump’s role in his campaign recruiting fake electors to flip the results of states President Joe Biden won, his strategy to have Vice President Mike Pence recognize the alternate electors and for encouraging supporters to “fight like hell” during a speech before the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021. No other former president has ever been charged with a crime before.
Trump announced July 18 he was a target of the investigation for alleged conspiracy to defraud the United States, deprivatino of rights and witness tampering. He has denied wrongdoing and argued the prosecution is politically motivated while continuing to campaign for president in 2024.
Trump already faces two other criminal cases. He was charged federally with mishandling classified documents at his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago. He was charged in New York with falsifying business records to pay hush money before the 2016 election to a woman who claimed to have had sex with him.
Indictment: Trump used several methods to overturn the election
The indictment lists a number of strategies that Trump and associates deployed to try and overturn the election.
They included pressuring officials to invalidate Biden wins in certain states, appointing “fake electors” to replace Biden slates and demanding that Vice President Mike Pence spike some Biden electoral votes when Congress met to ratify the Electoral College vote on Jan. 6, 2021.
The indictment also said that Trump encouraged a mob on Jan. 6, 2021, to “go to the Capitol as a means to obstruct the certification and pressure the Vice President to fraudulently obstruct the certification” of Biden’s victory.
The indictment listed, but did not name, six co-conspirators; they include attorneys, a Justice Department official, and a political consultant.
−David Jackson
Pence called Trump to wish him a Merry Christmas. Trump talked overturning the election.
When then-Vice President Mike Pence called his boss, former President Donald Trump, on Dec. 25, 2020, to wish him a Merry Christmas, Trump “quickly turned the conversation to January 6 and his request that the Vice President reject electoral votes that day,” according to the indictment.
“The Vice President pushed back, telling the Defendant, as the Vice President already had in previous conversations, ‘You know I don’t think I have the authority to change the outcome.'”
− Ken Tran
Indictment details Trump’s pressure campaign in Georgia amid separate probe in the state
The indictment alleges that Trump induced Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to alter the state’s popular vote count and questioned the validity of President Joe Biden’s electors’ votes.
“The Defendant said that he needed to “find” 11,780 votes, and insinuated that the Georgia Secretary of State and his Counsel could be subject to criminal prosecution if they failed to find election fraud as he demanded,” the indictment says.
Georgia’s Fulton County District Attorney Fanni Willis is investigating Trump’s alleged role in overturning the state’s 2020 election results in a separate probe. She said in an interview that a decision to charge Trump could come by Sept. 1.
−Sudiksha Kochi
What is a grand jury?
It is a group of people who are selected to hear evidence presented by the government in order to determine whether to charge someone with a crime. Unlike a trial jury which decides whether or not to find someone guilty of a crime, a grand jury is only tasked with deciding whether the government has enough evidence to indict someone.
A grand jury usually conducts its proceedings in private and, after hearing evidence, will vote to decide whether to indict someone on criminal charges.
To decide whether to charge someone with a crime, a federal grand jury only requires a simple majority to vote in favor of indicting. A trial jury, however, needs unanimity to reach a guilty verdict.
This marks the third time a grand jury has voted to indict former President Donald Trump.
−Miles J. Herszenhorn
What is an indictment?
An indictment is a formal document that contains allegations that someone committed a crime. It includes the charges laid out against a person and is filed before a case can move forward in court, David Weinstein, a former federal and state prosecutor, previously told USA TODAY.
Weinstein said that an indictment means a grand jury decided that there’s “more likely than not” enough evidence – based on testimony – to move forward with charging a person. At least twelve jurors must be in agreement that a defendant allegedly committed a crime to issue an indictment.
After a person is indicted, they must go to trial where a jury will reach an unanimous decision on whether to pursue conviction.
−Sudiksha Kochi
What does the indictment say?
The indictment detailed Trump’s effort to use the Justice Department to overturn the 2020 election.
“In late December 2020, the Defendant attempted to use the Justice Department to make knowingly false claims of election fraud to officials in the targeted states through a formal letter under the Acting Attorney General’s signature, thus giving the Defendant’s lies the backing of the federal government and attempting to improperly influence the targeted states to replace legitimate Biden electors with the Defendant’s,” the indictment stated.
The indictment also alleged that Trump threatened to change leadership in the Justice Department after senior DOJ officials refused to support the former president’s false claims about the 2020 election. The indictment references a 2020 New Year’s Eve meeting between Trump, acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, and acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue.
“On December 31, the Defendant summoned to the Oval Office the Acting Attorney General, Acting Deputy Attorney General, and other advisors,” the indictment stated. “In the meeting, the Defendant again raised claims about election fraud that Justice Department officials already had told him were not true–and that the senior Justice Department officials reiterated were false and suggested he might change the leadership in the Justice Department.”
−Miles J. Herszenhorn
Indictment lists at least six Trump co-conspirators, including a Justice Department official and four lawyers
The indictment handed up Tuesday lists six people as co-conspirators in Trump’s alleged schemes to illegally stay in power, including Jeffrey Clark, a high-ranking Justice Department official in the Trump administration.
The indictment does not name any of the alleged co-conspirators. But it says “co-conspirator 4” is “a Justice Department official who worked on civil matters and who, with the Defendant, attempted to use the Justice Department to open sham election crime investigations and influence state legislatures with knowingly false claims of election fraud.”
The other co-conspirators allegedly helped Trump “in his criminal efforts to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election and retain power.” The indictment described one “an attorney who was willing to spread knowingly false claims and pursue strategies that the Defendant’s 2020 re-election campaign attorneys would not,” while another attorney “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 presidentialelection.−Josh Meyer
Unsealed indictment alleges Trump deliberately directed rioters to Capitol to overturn 2020 election
The unsealed indictment accuses Trump of deliberately deceiving his supporters with his false claims of election fraud and directing them to the Capitol to pressure former Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the 2020 election.
“The Defendant repeated false claims of election fraud, gave false hope that the Vice President might change the election outcome, and directed the crowd in front of him to go to the Capitol as a means to obstruct the certification and pressure the Vice President to fraudulently obstruct the certification,” reads the indictment.
The indictment also alleges Trump and an unnamed co-conspirator “attempted to exploit the violence and chaos at the Capitol” by pressuring lawmakers to delay the certification of the electors.
− Ken Tran
DeSantis criticizes prosecutors, not Trump
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is Trump’s closest competitor in the Republican presidential race, took a low-key approach to his third indictment, and criticized the indictment rather than his front-running campaign rival.
“While I’ve seen reports, I have not read the indictment,’ DeSantis said in a social media post. “I do, though, believe we need to enact reforms so that Americans have the right to remove cases from Washington, DC to their home districts.”
DeSantis also said that, if elected president, “I will end the weaponization of government, replace the FBI Director, and ensure a single standard of justice for all Americans.”
The Florida governor was also reluctant to criticize Trump after his first two indictment – both which seemed to fuel Trump’s rise among GOP voters. He has a huge lead in Republican polls.
−David Jackson
‘Don’t care, still voting Trump’
Reaction to the new indictment on pro-Trump message boards and from far-right pundits on the social media and messaging app Telegram was swift, furious, and resigned.
Several posts of the pro-Trump forum Patriots.win Tuesday evening echoed a similar theme:
“Don’t care, still voting Trump,” read the most-upvoted post.
“I’ll either write in Trump or vote Libertarian. I’m done with the rest of the party. They don’t represent me. do they represent you?” read a reply.
Other posts expressed confusion about whether the former president will be allowed to run in 2024, with some people claiming Trump will be removed from the ballot in several states.
Far-right provocateur Ali Alexander, largely considered the architect of the “Stop the Steal” movement that emerged after Trump lost the 2020 election, had a message for his more than 15,000 Telegram subscribers:
“They’re gonna indict Trump in Fulton County Georgia soon too. This is totalitarian crap. There is no Law & Order! Patriots, act accordingly! Opsec!”
−Will Carless
