Slowly, but the machinery of justice continues to move. Special prosecutor Jack Smith has succeeded in getting another grand jury to indict Donald Trump on four alleged crimes in the federal case in Washington for interference in the result of the 2020 election, which he lost to Joe Biden. The new indictment, for the same four crimes, is limited to what the prosecutor considers not to be official acts covered by the broad immunity that the Supreme Court granted Trump after an appeal against the initial indictment.
The new indictment is contained in a 36-page brief filed Tuesday with the court that redacts some aspects of the original 45-page indictment. For example, it removes former Justice Department lawyer Jeffrey Clark as an unnamed and uncharged co-conspirator in the case. The Supreme Court ruled that Trump’s conversations with Justice Department officials were protected from prosecution by presidential immunity, and anything related to Trump’s attempts to mobilize the department to support his claims is excluded from the new indictment.
“The superseded indictment, which was presented to a new grand jury that had not previously heard evidence in this case, reflects the government’s efforts to respect and implement the Supreme Court’s rulings and remand instructions in Trump v. United States,” said a brief filed by the prosecutor with the court of Tanya Chutkan, the person in charge of the case.
Trump’s defense will likely oppose this new charge and dispute the argument that it complies with the criteria established by the Supreme Court in its ruling of July 1. The prosecutor believes that acts such as pressuring state officials to spread false claims of electoral fraud and attempts to alter the result in several states are not covered by the Supreme Court’s immunity doctrine because they are not related to presidential responsibilities.
The prosecutor again accuses the former president of four crimes: conspiracy to defraud the US government, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction or attempted obstruction of an official proceeding, and conspiracy to violate civil rights. Trump claims that the election was stolen from him, but the prosecutor does not accuse him of this baseless lie, but rather of his actions to alter the result and prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s victory. Regarding the first accusation, the new document advances by one day the date on which prosecutors consider Trump’s conspiracy to remain in office began, to November 13, 2020.
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Special counsel Jack Smith is reviving the election interference charge a day after he appealed against dismissing the other case he is handling, the Mar-a-Lago papers case, in which Trump is accused of withholding classified information relevant to the defense of the United States, obstruction of justice and other crimes. Both cases are moving slowly, and since it is up to the Justice Department, Trump could get the charges dropped if he returns to the White House.
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