Washington – Special counsel Jack Smith filed a superseding indictment against former President Donald Trump on Tuesday in which he again accused Trump of rejecting a peaceful transfer of power after 2020 presidential election. Smith narrowed the allegations after a landmark Supreme Court ruling about the president’s powers earlier this year.
The new charging document is based on an enhanced set of criminal acts after the Supreme Court ruled that Trump is immune from prosecution for some of the acts included in Smith’s original 2023 indictment.
Prosecutors maintained the four charges against Trump that he previously faced – including conspiracy to defraud the United States – but limited the evidence included in the indictment and even excluded an unnamed person from a list of unindicted co-conspirators. The original indictment described the man as “an official of the Department of Justice who worked on civil matters and who, with the defendant, attempted to use the Department of Justice to open an investigation of fraudulent election crimes and to influence the state legislature with false claims of election fraud.” It is believed to be Jeffrey Clark, who headed the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the Department of Justice and later became the head of the Civil Division action.
Smith and his team said a federal grand jury in Washington returned the amended indictment Tuesday. Prosecutors said they did not rule out canceling Trump’s appearance at the arraignment in a new charging document.
Again detailing alleged actions like organizing fake presidential polls or working with private lawyers on legal strategies to undermine the transfer of power, Smith accused the former president of using his role as a candidate for office – not the president of the United States. – to cancel the election results.
The new superseding indictment is a response to a Supreme Court ruling last month in which the court’s conservative majority ruled presidents and former presidents immune from criminal prosecution for “official acts” committed while in office. Some of the actions alleged in Smith’s original indictment, such as Trump’s discussions with the Justice Department after the 2020 presidential election, were disqualified, according to a July opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts.
Roberts divided presidential actions into three categories: official actions that are part of the president’s “core constitutional powers;” other official acts that are outside the “exclusive authority”; and informal behavior. The President has “absolute” immunity for the first category; immunity “presumptive” for the second, which can be rebutted by the government; and no immunity for the third.
In applying that legal test, the high court ruled that the charges against Trump could not be tied to conduct related to his official responsibilities as president. Other alleged actions contained in the charging document – including Trump’s interactions with Vice President Mike Pence before January 6, 2021, the Electoral College vote certification by Congress – are a closer call, according to the Supreme Court. Other campaign-related actions are fair game for prosecutors, the court said.
In a concurring opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett said she believed Trump allegedly tried to organize false slates of private voters and “therefore is not entitled to protection.”
The High Court assigned a judge to oversee the case, US District Court Judge Tanya Chutkanby parsing through Smith’s indictment to determine which alleged acts were “official” and “unofficial.”
Attorneys for Trump acknowledged in arguments before a judge in April that some of the actions covered in the indictment included “personal” actions that could not be protected from criminal charges, such as those involving outside lawyers who helped run a scheme to deliver fraudulent slates. voters.
After the mandate return to her court Following the decision of the Supreme Court, Chutkan asked the prosecutor to file a brief outlining the arguments for the path forward in the case by August 30. A hearing in the case is set for September 5.
By filing a superseded indictment against the former president, the special counsel appears to be opting out of possible evidentiary hearings in the case that would have forced prosecutors to reveal evidence gathered against Trump before his trial.
Smith Trump charged more than a year ago with four counts related to his actions after the 2020 presidential election. Prosecutors alleged that the former president conspired to subvert the peaceful transfer of power through a pressure campaign at the state and federal levels that culminated in the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
Trump pleaded not guilty to the original count and has denied all wrongdoing.
Most of the conduct alleged in the first indictment remains in Smith’s new charging document, with one notable exception, including the former president’s dealings with Justice Department officials. The Supreme Court ruled the act was immune from prosecution because it said it was within Trump’s exclusive constitutional authority.
Prosecutors accuse Trump of working to pressure state officials to overturn election results and say he and unnamed conspirators worked to gather alternative voters before the election certification in Washington, DC
Notably, the new indictment also repeats the allegations that Trump tried to “enlist” Pence in the alleged plan, but explains that the prosecutor sees Pence not as the vice president in this matter, but as Trump’s mate in the political race.
