US Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith filed a superseding indictment against former president Donald Trump for his alleged attempts to interfere in the 2020 election following his loss to Joe Biden.
The new charging document tailors the allegations against Trump to the recent US Supreme Court ruling that presidents are immune from prosecution for certain in-office acts.
The re-tooled indictment maintains four criminal counts against Trump, but it carves out some of the descriptions of his alleged conduct.
Trump has denied the election interference allegations, though he has maintained his claim – without evidence – that there was widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election.
The new indictment leaves in place the four crimes Trump is accused of committing: Conspiracy to defraud the US, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, attempting to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights.
Trump has previously pleaded not guilty to all charges.
The former president’s personal lawyer – Todd Blanche – referred the BBC to the Trump campaign, which did not respond to a request for comment.
Trump said in a post on Truth Social that the new indictment was “an effort to resurrect a ‘dead’ Witch Hunt” and “distract the American People” from the election.
He called for it to be “dismissed IMMEDIATELY”.
A source close to Trump’s legal team told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, that the new indictment “was not a surprise”.
“This is what the government is supposed to do based on what the Supreme Court did,” the source said. “It doesn’t change our position that we believe Smith’s case is flawed and it should be dismissed.”
The new charging document – which was slimmed down from 45 to 36 pages – re-works the language of the allegations and refines the ways it argues that the former president allegedly committed these crimes to comport with the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity.
For example, the new indictment drops the claim that Trump tried to pressure justice department officials to work to overturn his defeat. The high court ruled that Trump’s direction to justice officials was not illegal.
The special counsel’s office explained the reason for the new indictment in a statement on Tuesday.
“The superseding indictment, which was presented to a new grand jury that had not previously heard evidence in this case, reflects the Government’s efforts to respect and implement the Supreme Court’s holdings and remand instructions in Trump v. United States,” the office said.
The justice department declined to comment further.
The new charging document argues that Trump acted as a private citizen – and not as president – when he undertook the alleged scheme to sway the election.
“The Defendant had no official responsibilities related to the certification proceeding, but he did have a personal interest as a candidate in being named the winner of the election,” reads one new line in the indictment.
Another new line refers to a lawsuit filed by his campaign in Georgia. The old language said the suit was “filed in his name,” but the new indictment says it was “filed in his capacity as a candidate for President.”
The new indictment also appears to have removed the charges against Jeffrey Clark – a former justice department official who played a key role in the so-called fake electors scheme, according to prosecutors.
The fake electors scheme was an attempt to interfere in the Electoral College system that decides presidential elections. It centred on an attempt to persuade Republican-controlled state legislatures in seven states to select Republican electors or not name any electors in states that Mr Biden won.
The falsified certificates were then transferred to the US Senate in an effort to have their votes counted in the place of the real electors, and overturn Mr Biden’s win.
Mr Clark was not named in either indictment, but has been identified in the media through public records.
The new indictment leaves in place several key allegations against Trump, including that he attempted to persuade Vice-President Mike Pence to obstruct Mr Biden’s election certification.
In last month’s Supreme Court ruling, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that any conversations between Trump and Mr Pence would probably fall under the category of official acts.
“Trump is at least presumptively immune from prosecution,” he wrote, adding that it remains to be seen whether the government can rebut “that presumption of immunity”.
The new indictment shows that Mr Smith interpreted the US Supreme Court ruling to mean that his case could still move forward, said Daniel Charles Richman, a constitutional law expert at Columbia Law School.
But whether it would satisfy the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity framework remains unclear, the law professor said, as “the Court was painfully vague as to what private conduct done by a president can be charged criminally”.
The new indictment would not necessarily expedite the case, either, Mr Richman told the BBC. He doubted that it would be heard before the election.
The CBS News source close to Trump’s legal team said that the former president’s lawyers would ask for more time to prepare for the case. They said it would likely delay the start of the trial if the judge agrees.
This case came together after Mr Smith was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland in 2022 to oversee two federal investigations into Trump: The election interference case and another case accusing the ex-president of taking classified documents back to his Florida home after leaving office.
On Monday, Mr Smith’s team appealed against a Florida judge’s decision to dismiss the confidential documents case.
“The district court deviated from binding Supreme Court precedent, misconstrued the statutes that authorized the special counsel’s appointment, and took inadequate account of the longstanding history of Attorney General appointments of special counsels,” the special counsel’s team wrote in their appeal.
Both cases face uncertain futures after the Supreme Court’s landmark decision last month.
If Trump wins over Democrat Kamala Harris, he is widely expected to order the justice department to drop all the federal charges that he faces.
By BBC News
Email your news TIPS to Editor@kahawatungu.com or WhatsApp +254707482874
