What Trump's new indictment in the 2020 election interference case means

WASHINGTON (AP) — Special Counsel Jack Smith is pushing his Conclusion case of the 2020 elections against Donald Trump, with a new indictment The goal is to save the prosecution after the Supreme Court eliminated the possibility of a trial before the November election.

The new indictment, filed in Washington on Tuesday, contains the same criminal charges, but limits the allegations to the Supreme Court ruling that former presidents enjoy broad immunity from prosecution.

Here you can find out everything you need to know about the case and what happens next:

_____

Why a new indictment?

In his Last month’s verdictThe conservative majority of the Supreme Court declared that former presidents were absolutely immune from prosecution for official acts that fell within their “exclusive scope of constitutional authority.”

In addition, former presidents enjoy at least presumptive immunity for other official acts, the Supreme Court said, but prosecutors can try to argue that those allegations remain part of the indictment. But former presidents do not enjoy immunity for unofficial or private acts, the justices said.

The Supreme Court then declared that Trump was immune from prosecution for his conduct related to the Justice Department, effectively striking those charges from the indictment. The justices sent the case back to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to analyze what other charges could potentially be brought to trial.

By rewriting the indictment, Smith's team hopes to make this task easier for Chutkan by removing references to allegations that they believe could be considered official acts for which Trump could be immune.

What's different?

The new indictment makes no mention of Trump's contacts with Justice Department officials, whom prosecutors say he tried to enlist in his failed attempt to overturn his election defeat. Prosecutors allege that Trump tried to use the Justice Department to conduct sham election fraud investigations and send letters to states falsely claiming significant voter fraud had been found.

The new indictment also deletes details of Trump's communications with certain other federal government officials, such as the Director of National Intelligence and senior White House lawyers, who prosecutors say told Trump that his claims of election fraud were false.

In addition, the text contains language intended to support the prosecution's claim that Trump took the actions that form the basis of his case in his personal capacity as a candidate, not in his professional capacity as president.

For example, the new indictment states that Trump had “no official obligations” related to Congress's certification of the 2020 election, “but as a candidate he had a personal interest in being declared the winner of the election.”

On the first page of the old indictment, Trump is referred to as the 45th US President. The new indictment simply states that Trump was a “candidate for President of the United States in 2020.”

References to certain statements made by Trump from the White House are also being deleted, such as the video message on Twitter that he recorded from the Rose Garden in which he encouraged his supporters in the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to go home, but assured them: “We love you, you are very special.” But the comments Trump made during his speech near the White House before the riots remain in the indictment. It was a “campaign speech at a privately funded, privately organized political rally,” the indictment says.

Smith's team noted that a new grand jury that had not previously heard evidence in the case had issued the indictment. The move was likely intended to prevent Trump's lawyers from arguing that the entire case was rigged because the grand jury that issued the original indictment heard evidence that the Supreme Court now considers irrelevant.

What has stayed the same?

Trump remains charged with four counts: obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and conspiracy to violate voting rights. While the Supreme Court in another case in June Although prosecutors believed the Justice Department had over-broadened the obstruction of justice charge against the Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol, they maintained that charge against Trump, suggesting he will withstand renewed scrutiny in his case.

The indictment contains a series of allegations against Trump, including that he pressured state officials to manipulate the election results and participated in a conspiracy orchestrated by allies. to recruit lists of fraudulent electors in swing states who would falsely testify that Trump had won in those states. Trump “had no official duties related to the calling of legitimate electors or their signing and mailing of their certificates of election,” the new indictment states.

She also maintains that Trump tried to put pressure on Vice President Mike Pence to invalidate legitimate electoral votes and that Trump and his allies took advantage of the chaos at the Capitol on January 6 to further delay the certification of President Joe Biden's victory.

What does Trump say?

Trump reacted with predictable anger, railing against the new charges on his Truth Social platform, calling them an act of “desperation” that “has all the problems with the old charges and should be dropped IMMEDIATELY!”

He also claimed that Smith revised the original indictment to “circumvent” the Supreme Court ruling. However, the exact opposite is true: By reducing the case and the charges, the Special Counsel's office was clearly trying to conform to the spirit of the ruling, rather than circumvent it.

Trump also claimed that by bringing the new charges, the Justice Department violated an internal “policy” that prohibits any investigative action that could affect a campaign within 60 days of an election.

But the reality is more complicated: the policy he cited in connection with the indictment is in fact an informal and unwritten practice rather than a hard and fast rule.

It is true that the Justice Department has long advised against taking overt investigative actions in the run-up to an election. Attorneys general memos have said for years that prosecutors should never file charges or take visible actions—such as executing a search warrant—to influence an election.

The goal is to avoid new allegations against a candidate that the candidate may not have enough time to respond to or that voters may not have enough time to process before casting their ballot. But that instruction doesn't seem relevant here, in part because the revised indictment doesn't contain any new allegations against Trump for voters to consider—in fact, it actually retracts the allegations against him.

How does the process work and what happens next?

The case is now back in Judge Chutkan's hands, but that doesn't mean there will be a trial anytime soon. It will likely be months before legal arguments begin over which official conduct-related charges should be struck from the indictment.

On Friday, Smith's team and Trump's lawyers are expected to propose a timetable for the trial in light of the Supreme Court's ruling. And next week, both sides are expected to meet in Chutkan's courtroom for the first time in months to discuss the next steps.

Trump's lawyers may launch new efforts to dismiss the lawsuit. His legal team has tried at every turn to the criminal proceedings against him and could ask for more time to assess the impact of the Supreme Court ruling.