Here’s what you need to know about Trump’s third round of criminal charges.
Mere months ago, no former president of the United States had ever been indicted on criminal charges. Now, Donald Trump has changed that — not once, not twice, but three times.
On Tuesday, Jack Smith, special counsel for the Justice Department, formally charged the 45th president for his role in allegedly seeking to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 election and undermining his defeat by Joe Biden. It’s yet another political bombshell in the career of a deeply unorthodox politician — one who, despite already being the subject of several other criminal probes, continues to hold steady in polling that suggests he’s currently the hands-down favorite to score the GOP’s presidential nomination in 2024.
Here’s what we know about these latest charges and why they could be the most significant Trump has faced yet.
What has Jack Smith indicted Trump for in relation to Jan. 6?
The former president faces four charges: conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.
While the first three are relatively straightforward, you may be wondering what “conspiracy against rights” rights means, exactly. According to the criminal code, the charge applies to anyone who “conspires to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate” any person seeking to freely exercise “any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States.”
But Trump isn’t the only one facing charges in this case. The indictment lists six co-conspirators who haven’t yet been named, though they’re identified as four lawyers, a Justice Department official, and a political consultant, all of whom either spread false claims of election fraud or assisted in strategizing about how to obstruct the certification of Joe Biden’s win in 2020. CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins posted on Twitter that one of these unnamed co-conspirators appears to be former New York mayor Rudy Guiliani.
Where can I read a PDF of the Trump indictment?
As soon as the charges were officially filed, the entire record circulated far and wide online. It’s 45 pages long, and it’s signed by Jack Smith. The document details the case that prosecutors will seek to build against the former president in court, and you can read the entire thing right here.
What is Trump’s indictment count, and will he be facing any more?
This latest round of charges is the third indictment against the former president.
The first pertains to a case in the state of New York. At the end of March, a grand jury in Manhattan indicted Trump on 34 felony counts over allegations that the former president falsified business records in paying hush money to the adult film star Stormy Daniels. Investigators say Trump made a $130,000 payment to Daniels to cover up an affair they had, which he did not want to be made public during the 2016 election.
The second indictment came at the federal level. In that case, the Justice Department charged Trump with 40 criminal counts related to the mishandling of classified government documents that he took from the White House and stored at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.
These latest charges related to the Jan. 6 insurrection mark Trump’s third indictment, but they may not be his last. Any day now, he could face further charges in the state of Georgia, which also relate to efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has been investigating what she calls Trump’s “attempts to influence the administration of the 2020 Georgia General Election,” including asking local officials to “find” more votes that would tip the race in his favor.
What does the latest Trump indictment mean, and why are people saying this is the most significant one yet?
While Trump’s first two indictments were undoubtedly historic, analysts are already saying the charges surrounding Jan. 6 are the most concrete — and the most dangerous for Trump’s future.
The first charges, in the hush money case in New York, drew criticism from both sides of the aisle as commentators declared that using the payment to Daniels to build a felony criminal case was quite the stretch. Even left-leaning writers like New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait argued the indictment risked prosecutorial overreach. “Trump is in this position because he maneuvered to keep quiet a tawdry story about his infidelity. That is not a crime,” Chait wrote. “The alleged crime is disguising the source of the payment and, thereby, evading campaign-finance law. … Trump is in a position where an activity he could have done legally became a crime simply because he was a candidate for office.”
His second indictment, related to the classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, is generally agreed to be much more serious than the case in New York, but it’s harder to make an argument for the direct harm of these alleged crimes. Though it’s certainly illegal for a president to knowingly hoard top-secret information that belongs with the National Archives, there hasn’t been evidence that Trump was seeking to make money using these government secrets or sharing them with foreign actors, for example.
A well-reasoned piece from The New Republic argues that the Jan. 6 charges put Trump in the most legal jeopardy because of their simplicity. “This is the most potent ingredient of this third indictment,” the story explains. “Here we have the most complete picture of Donald Trump: the incompetence, the neediness, and the despotism.”
In essence, the allegations of how Trump sought to undermine the democratic process are clear and easy to understand, as are the effects of these efforts, which includes several deaths that happened during and after the chaos at the Capitol.
Has Jack Smith made a statement about the Jan. 6 indictment?
The special counsel who’s been investigating Trump — and ultimately charged him on Tuesday — gave a brief statement to reporters after the charges had been made public. He said the Justice Department is “committed to ensuring accountability for those criminally responsible for what happened” on Jan. 6, which he described as “an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy.” He added that his office will seek a “speedy trial” for the president.
Watch Smith’s full statement below:
