“The attack on our nation’s Capitol on January 6, 2021 was an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy,” special counsel Jack Smith said at the Justice Department on the evening of August 1, 2023. “It was fuelled by lies, lies by the defendant, targeted at disrupting a bedrock function of the nation’s government.”
Hours earlier, a Washington grand jury had indicted Donald Trump on four charges tied to his conduct after the 2020 election. The Globe and Mail described it as the most serious case the former president had yet faced.
The four counts
The charges were conspiracy to defraud the United States, obstructing an official proceeding, conspiring to obstruct that proceeding, and conspiracy against rights. The indictment ran 45 pages and referred to six unnamed co-conspirators. It was Trump’s third indictment, and the first against a U.S. president over actions taken while in office. The longest possible sentence among the charges was 20 years in prison.
Smith accused Trump of “perpetrating three criminal conspiracies”: meddling in the election process, shutting down Congress’s certification of the vote on January 6, and disenfranchising millions of voters. Judge Tanya S. Chutkan was randomly assigned the case. Trump surrendered in court on August 3 and pleaded not guilty.
What the indictment alleges
According to the indictment, Trump pressed state officials, the Justice Department and then-Vice President Mike Pence to help him throw out Joe Biden’s victory. The effort centred on seven states Biden had won: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
In Georgia, the document says, Trump threatened Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger with criminal prosecution if he did not “find” enough votes. In Arizona, Trump and adviser Rudy Giuliani asked the Republican House speaker to overturn the result, despite admitting they had no proof of fraud. Trump met Michigan Republican legislators at the White House and texted them repeatedly afterward. All of these officials refused.
Lawyer John Eastman, with some help from Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel and then-chief of staff Mark Meadows, then helped assemble slates of fake electors, the indictment says. The plan was to get legislatures, Pence or Congress to swap them in for the real ones. Trump also pushed the Justice Department to tell states that the election had been stolen. Jeffrey Clark, a Justice official, tried to carry that out and was blocked by his superiors.
The indictment says Trump knew his fraud claims were false because advisers told him so, among them then-Attorney General Bill Barr. It quotes it saying, “These claims were false, and the defendant knew that they were false.” When Pence refused to cooperate, Trump allegedly told him, “You’re too honest.”
On December 19, 2020, Trump tweeted to supporters: “Be there, will be wild!” On January 6 he told the crowd to “fight like hell.” The indictment says he refused his advisers’ requests to call off the rioters, and that he, Giuliani and Eastman spent part of that afternoon and evening phoning legislators. Only late in the day did Trump ask supporters by video to go home, calling them “special” and repeating that the election was “stolen.”
Trump’s response and what followed
On Truth Social, Trump called Smith “Deranged” and accused him of trying to “interfere with the Presidential Election of 2024.” He pleaded not guilty.
The investigation had roughly 2½ years behind it. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said on CNN in January 2022 that the Justice Department would examine the fake electors plot, and Attorney General Merrick Garland named Smith special counsel on November 18, 2022. Smith said the day of the indictment that his investigation was not finished.
The case later changed shape. After the DC Circuit ruled that Trump was not immune, the Supreme Court held on July 1, 2024, that former presidents have “some immunity from criminal prosecution” for their “official acts.” Smith filed a superseding indictment on August 27 that kept the same four charges. After Trump’s election on November 6, 2024, Smith moved to dismiss, citing Justice Department policy against prosecuting a sitting president, and on November 25 Chutkan dismissed the charges.
Sources
- Federal prosecution of Donald Trump (election obstruction case) – Wikipedia
- Trump indicted by grand jury for plot to overturn 2020 election, inciting Jan. 6 mob
