Former President Trump was indicted Tuesday by a Washington grand jury on charges stemming from his efforts to remain in power after losing the 2020 election.
The 45-page indictment from special counsel Jack Smith puts Trump at the center of a lawless campaign to block the transfer of power, charging him with conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and other crimes.
At its core, the Justice Department contends Trump embarked on a campaign of “dishonesty, fraud and conceit” to obstruct a “bedrock function” of a democracy — the counting of votes — generating charges for conspiracy to defraud the U.S.
“Despite having lost, the Defendant was determined to remain in power. So for more than two months following election day on November 3, 2020, the Defendant spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won,” the indictment states.
“These claims were false, and the Defendant knew that they were false,” it continues. “But the Defendant repeated and widely disseminated them anyway—to make his knowingly false claims appear legitimate, create an intense national atmosphere of mistrust and anger, and erode public faith in the administration of the election.”
That lie was the basis for charges on four counts, alleging Trump was the director of a conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and was also central to a campaign to block the certification of votes on Jan. 6.
That campaign spurred charges for obstruction of an official proceeding, the same charge brought against many of those who followed Trump’s Jan. 6 rally call for action and later stormed the Capitol in a deadly rampage.
The indictment also says Trump’s violated the rights of millions of Americans to cast a vote for the candidate of their choice, a right enshrined in the Constitution but further protected from “Conspiracy Against Rights.”
The indictment indicates that Trump will be charged alongside six co-conspirators who, though unnamed, point to a series of close advisers to the former president.
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