Special Counsel Jack Smith files revised charges in Trump election case | Donald Trump News

Federal prosecutors accusing former U.S. President Donald Trump of election interference have released a newly revised indictment in response to a recent Supreme Court ruling.

Tuesday's indictment narrows the focus of the case and leaves out Trump's interactions with the Justice Department.

However, the central accusation remains the same: Trump tried to manipulate the 2020 presidential election and overturn his defeat to Democrat Joe Biden. He has long claimed, without being able to provide any evidence, that widespread electoral fraud marred the 2020 election.

The reopened case, which is unfolding in Washington, DC, is one of four charges brought against Trump, who is the first U.S. president to be charged and convicted of a crime.

However, only one of the four cases resulted in a conviction: In May, Trump was found guilty in New York on 34 counts of falsifying business records. And even that verdict has been thrown into potential legal limbo by a recent Supreme Court decision granting the president broad immunity for his actions.

On July 1, the Supreme Court ruled in Trump v. United States that all “official” acts of the President are entitled to “presumptive immunity” from prosecution.

What is considered an “official” act goes beyond the constitutional powers of a president, the court explained, and represents a significant expansion of the power of the executive branch.

In its decision, the court specifically referred to the events of January 6, 2021, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol to prevent the certification of the Electoral College votes.

Referring to the indictment in Washington, DC, the court majority cited an example in which Trump was accused of “attempting to manipulate the Vice President” in order to “manipulate the election results.”

Since dealing with a vice president is one of the official duties of a president, “Trump is at least presumptively immune from prosecution for such conduct,” the court explained.

The Supreme Court currently has a conservative two-thirds majority; three of the judges were appointed by Trump himself. The decision was made along ideological lines; the three left-leaning judges voted against.

The court's decision had an immediate impact on the case in Washington as well as on the other charges against Trump. Tuesday's revised indictment shows how federal prosecutors, led by special counsel Jack Smith, plan to respond to the ruling.

The indictment was shortened from 45 to 36 pages, removing the references that the Supreme Court highlighted in its July decision.

It is also emphasized that the interactions described in the new version involved people outside the President's official circle.

For example, when naming Trump's co-conspirators, the revised indictment states that none of them “were government officials during the conspiracies and none of them acted in a private capacity.”

However, the central charges remain the same as in the first version of the indictment: Trump participated in a conspiracy to defraud the United States, obstruct and obstruct an official proceeding, and prevent the counting of legitimate votes.

Trump is charged with four counts in connection with these criminal charges.

“Each of these conspiracies – building on the widespread distrust the defendant created through pervasive and destabilizing lies about election fraud – targeted a fundamental function of the U.S. government: the process of recording, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election,” the indictment states.

The revised indictment sparked a flood of reactions on Trump's Truth Social account.

“In an attempt to revive a 'dead' witch hunt in Washington, DC, the illegally appointed 'Special Counsel' the insane Jack Smith, in an act of desperation and to save face, has filed a ridiculous new charge against me,” Trump wrote.

He said the new version had “all the problems of the old indictment.” He called for it to be “IMMEDIATELY dismissed.”

The former Republican president is in the midst of a second re-election campaign ahead of the November 5 presidential election. He has repeatedly described the charges against him as an attempt to thwart his latest chance at the White House, a charge he repeated again on Tuesday.

“PERSECUTION OF A POLITICAL OPPONENT!” he wrote in capital letters in a separate post.

In a later letter, he referred to a 2022 decision by the Biden-led Justice Department that prohibits the agency's political officials from participating in election-related activities within 60 days of an upcoming vote.

“It is the policy of the Department of Justice that within 60 days of an election they cannot take any action that would affect that election – but they just took such an action,” Trump claimed, referring to the date of early voting in some states rather than the official Election Day on November 5.

For his part, Smith, the special counsel who is independently leading the Justice Department's investigation into Trump, said the revamped indictment was issued to “reflect the government's efforts to respect and implement the Supreme Court's rulings and instructions to remand the indictment.”

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan is expected to issue a ruling in the case, which is unlikely to go to trial before the November election.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to all criminal charges against him.