Trump tried to overturn election, Prosecutors say as they resubmit charges

On Tuesday, the prosecution re-filed the indictment against Donald Trump, bringing up the shocking accusation that, following his defeat by Joe Biden in the 2020 US election, he attempted to rig the results.

The four accusations against Trump in the superseding indictment are the same as in the previous version, but they are modified to reflect the recent Supreme Court decision that a former president is immune from prosecution in most cases.

The 78-year-old Republican presidential candidate’s revised indictment is 36 pages lengthy instead of the 45 pages it was before, and it excludes information impacted by the top court’s decision to grant immunity.

It basically says that even if Trump lost in 2020, he “was determined to remain in power” and made an effort to tamper with the outcome.

The Supreme Court ruled in July that an ex-president has broad immunity from prosecution for official acts conducted while in office, but can be pursued for unofficial acts.

This threw into doubt the historic prosecution of the ex-president.

Trump referred to the new indictment as an “act of desperation” that was part of a “witch hunt” against him.

“The illegally appointed ‘Special Counsel’ Deranged Jack Smith, has brought a ridiculous new Indictment against me, which has all the problems of the old Indictment, and should be dismissed IMMEDIATELY,” he posted on his Truth Social platform.

The new indictment comes three days before Special Counsel Jack Smith, who brought the charges against Trump, and lawyers for the former president had been scheduled to file a schedule for pre-trial proceedings.

Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over the case, had also scheduled a status hearing in the case for September 5 in Washington and it was not immediately clear if that would go ahead now, following the filing of the superseding indictment.

Trump’s lawyers have been seeking to delay a trial until after November’s election between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate.

Trump is accused of conspiracy to defraud the United States and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding — the January 6, 2021, joint session of Congress that was attacked by Trump supporters.

Trump is also accused of seeking to disenfranchise US voters with his campaign of false claims that he won the 2020 election.

He was originally scheduled to go on trial on March 4, but that was put on hold while his lawyers pushed his claim of presidential immunity all the way up to the Supreme Court.

– ‘Private capacity’ –

It will be up to Chutkan, an appointee of former Democratic president Barack Obama, to decide which of Trump’s actions regarding the 2020 election were official acts and which were unofficial acts subject to potential prosecution.

That and other pre-trial issues are expected to take months, making it unlikely the case will go to trial before the November 5 presidential vote.

The new indictment drops references to Jeffrey Clark, a former senior Justice Department official who was one of six co-conspirators listed in the original indictment allegedly enlisted by Trump to press his false claims of election fraud.

The Supreme Court, in its immunity ruling, said a president’s communications with members of the Justice Department should be considered official acts.

The remaining co-conspirators, who include Trump’s former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, “were acting in a private capacity,” the indictment said, “to assist him in his criminal efforts to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election and retain power.”

Trump was convicted in New York in May of 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels.

Sentencing has been scheduled for September 18, but Trump’s lawyers have asked for his conviction to be tossed, citing the Supreme Court immunity ruling, and sentencing to be delayed.

Trump also faces charges in Georgia related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Trump was also charged in Florida with mishandling top-secret documents after leaving the White House.

The judge presiding over the documents case, Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, dismissed the charges on the grounds that Smith, the special counsel, was unlawfully appointed.

Smith has appealed Cannon’s ruling.