Former President Donald Trump was indicted Tuesday in a sprawling Justice Department investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Trump has been charged by the Department of Justice with the following four counts:
- A conspiracy to defraud the United States “by using dishonesty, fraud and deceit to obstruct the nation’s process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election,” according to the special counsel’s office.
- A conspiracy to impede the Jan. 6 congressional proceeding at which the collected results of the presidential election are counted and certified.
- A conspiracy against the right to vote and to have that vote counted.
- Obstruction of, and attempt to obstruct and impede, the certification of the electoral vote.
Trump said last month he had received a letter from special counsel Jack Smith’s office notifying him that he was a target of that investigation. Last week, Trump’s legal team met with prosecutors at Smith’s office in Washington, suggesting that an indictment would be coming soon.
The investigation has focused on the turbulent two month-period after the November 2020 election in which Trump refused to accept his loss to Joe Biden and spread lies that victory was stolen from him. The turmoil resulted in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, when Trump loyalists violently broke into the building, attacked police officers and disrupted the congressional counting of electoral votes. More than 1,000 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Capitol riot.
In between the election and the riot, Trump urged local election officials to undo voting results in their states, pressured Vice President Mike Pence to halt the certification of electoral votes and falsely claimed that the election had been stolen — despite the fact that numerous federal and local officials, a long list of courts, top former campaign staffers and even his own attorney general have all said there is no evidence of the fraud he alleges.
The letter from Smith’s office mentions three federal statutes related to the deprivation of rights, conspiracy to defraud the United States and witness tampering, NBC News reported, citing two attorneys with knowledge of the document.
The grand jury had been meeting in Washington, D.C., in the probe led by Smith.
Trump has been indicted twice previously this year. He was indicted in Florida last month in a case related to his handling of classified documents. And he was indicted in New York earlier this year in a case centered on $130,000 paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels during the closing days of the 2016 presidential campaign.
He has pleaded not guilty in both cases.
This is a developing story
from NBC Chicago https://ift.tt/SrRkUx3
No comments:
Post a Comment