The president faces four felony charges for attempting to overturn the 2020 election
The Trump Indictment: A Case Study of a Trump-Pence-Induced Campaign to Enforcing the First Amendment Constitutional Laws
Smith is trying to get Trump and six other people to tell the truth about criminal schemes that reached the highest level of American government. This is the case that, if successful, can once and for all strip Trump of any pretense of good faith or good will. This case is extremely important because it depends on Trump’s state of mind.
It can be broken down into two indispensable parts if it’s presented in a way that is too confusing: conspiracy to defraud the United States and conspiracy against rights. It will be important to prove what Trump knew. Second, it will be necessary to prove what he did. The first count in the indictment is a conspiracy to defraud the United States. The statute is designed to criminalize any interference or obstruction of a “lawful governmental function” by “deceit, craft or trickery.”
In the weeks after the 2020 election, the legal system was in a defensive crouch, repelling an onslaught of patently frivolous claims designed to reverse the election results. The legal system has been turned on its heels since the insurrection of January 6, 2021. With all deliberate speed, prosecutors first brought charges against Trump’s foot soldiers, the men and women who breached the Capitol. Next, prosecutors pursued the organizers of Trumpist right-wing militias, the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, who had engaged in a seditious conspiracy to keep Trump in the White House.
At the time, Trump refused to listen to what even his top advisers were telling him. There was no evidence of widespread fraud that would change the election’s outcome.
In the weeks following the election, Trump’s campaign pursued dozens of lawsuits in states where Trump lost. The Trump team’s election fraud claims were rejected many times.
He kept pushing his false claims and raising money for them. According to the House Jan. 6 Committee, Trump raised nearly $250 million between Election Day and Jan. 6, 2021.
Trump, leaning on legal theories proposed by outside attorney John Eastman, wanted Pence to refuse to count certain Electoral College votes — a theory that Pence rejected as unconstitutional.
Eastman is currently fighting to retain his law license. The State Bar of California argued that he was guilty of knowingly and willfully pushing false allegations of voter fraud during the 2020 election.
Republican officials in several states were persuaded to put forward an alternate slate of electors even though Biden had won those states as a ruse by the Trump advisers.
But as Congress was meeting on Capitol Hill, Trump was hosting a rally down by the White House. He called for a fight and told the crowd to march to congress after repeating his claims that there was election fraud.
Thousands of Trump supporters did just that. They marched from the Ellipse to the Capitol, where they fought through police lines, stormed the Capitol and sent lawmakers fleeing for safety.
The Justice Department immediately launched a nationwide investigation — one of the largest in the department’s history — to track down those who broke into the Capitol and to hold them accountable. So far, more than 1,000 people have been arrested in connection with the attack.
Two weeks after the former president said he may be indicted by a federal grand jury for his role in the U.S. Capitol siege, the charges against him were made public. That’s when protesters loyal to Trump stormed the Capitol in an attempt to prevent then-Vice President Mike Pence from performing his ceremonial role of certifying the presidential election in favor of the winner, Joe Biden.
In addition to the criminal charges, Trump is also accused of molesting two girls. The Florida and New York cases are over the accounting of hush money payments made in 2016 and the withholding of classified documents.
According to court documents, a federal grand jury indicted Donald Trump on Tuesday on charges related to his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
A U.S. Attorney’s General Relativity Charged to a Jan. 6 Counting of a Prosecuting Black Democrat
President Barack Obama nominated Chutkan to the bench, and he has used the hardest line against Jan. 6 defendants of any judge in Washington’s federal trial court.
According to The Associated Press, Chutkan stood out for her tough punishment for Jan. 6 rioters. The AP has found that Chutkan imposed harsher penalties than federal prosecutors intended in at least seven cases.
In this case, Trump is also facing a serious Washington, D.C., federal judge with years of experience, Tobias said. The case has been assigned to a judge.
Trump and his associates are accused of trying to interfere with election proceedings in the U.S. and of pressuring officials in several states to overturn the results.
This case involves more people — at least six unnamed co-conspirators are listed by prosecutors as part of the alleged conspiracy — and is widespread geographically compared to the case brought so far in New York and Florida, Tobias noted.
Prosecutors used this charge during the Civil Rights era to prosecute people who had intimidated and harassed Black voters.
It was passed after the Civil War in order to stop members of the Klan and similar organizations from harassing Black voters in the South.
