Special counsel unveils new Trump indictment in Jan. 6 case

Jack Smith says the new criminal indictment conforms with the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling because Trump’s actions didn’t constitute official presidential responsibilities.

Special Counsel Jack Smith has filed a new indictment against Donald Trump. Picture: Wall Street Journal

Special counsel Jack Smith has filed a new criminal indictment against Donald Trump for trying to undo his 2020 election loss, saying the case remains largely intact even after the Supreme Court’s July ruling that former presidents have sweeping immunity for acts they take while in office.

With the new indictment, Mr Trump faces the same four federal offences he was originally charged with related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election that culminated with the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. But Mr Smith said the government refashioned the case to conform to the Supreme Court’s belief that presidents may not be prosecuted for exercising their core constitutional powers.

Mr Smith said Mr Trump’s ­alleged actions outlined in the new indictment, such as pressuring state officials to pursue false claims of election fraud and seeking to undermine state voting outcomes, did not constitute official presidential responsibilities.

“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,” the special counsel wrote in a notice accompanying the superseding indictment.

Mr Trump on his Truth Social platform said Mr Smith had “brought a ridiculous new indictment against me, which has all the problems of the old indictment”, and called the move “an effort to resurrect a ‘dead’ witch hunt”.

The court’s six-three ruling ­appeared to put the federal election interference case in serious jeopardy. The majority explicitly nixed parts of the case, including allegations Mr Trump improperly tried to use the Justice Department to advance his unsubstantiated claims of election fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

The new indictment – down to 36 pages from 45 – strikes that ­section, and it no longer refers to six, but five, unnamed co-conspirators, removing one who was clearly identifiable as the ex-Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, who embraced Mr Trump’s efforts to undermine the vote.

Descriptions in the charges ­indicate that the other alleged co-conspirators include Rudy Giuliani and several other lawyers who worked with him to contest the 2020 election results – the same as in the original indictment. Prosecutors added that none of the five were in government and were acting in their private capacities.

The new indictment also drops allegations that White House lawyers and other administration officials told Mr Trump his claims of election fraud were false. The filing focuses instead on campaign staff allegedly advising Mr Trump that his claims were untrue, along with public statements in which state officials dispelled what Mr Smith called the “myth of widespread election fraud”.

Mr Trump is still accused of working with allies to create fake slates of electors claiming he won in several battleground states that actually belonged to Joe Biden. And Mr Trump’s efforts to pressure his vice-president, Mike Pence, to alter the results remain a central part of Mr Smith’s case.

The special counsel secured the new indictment days before a Friday deadline for a joint report from prosecutors and Mr Trump’s legal team that is expected to propose a schedule for additional proceedings. Before Tuesday’s indictment, a September 5 hearing had been scheduled in Washington federal district court to discuss the next steps. Prosecutors and Mr Trump’s lawyers are sure to spar over whether each of the remaining allegations fits within the ­Supreme Court’s framework.

With the new indictment, Mr Smith is aiming to keep the case from getting further bogged down, legal experts said. “He’s getting ahead of the game,” said retired federal judge John Jones.

Mr Smith has faced a number of setbacks in his efforts to prosecute Mr Trump in two separate federal cases. He filed the new election-related indictment a day after he began mounting arguments on appeal to reinstate a 40-count indictment accusing Mr Trump of illegally retaining classified documents after he left the White House. A federal judge in Florida, Aileen Cannon, tossed the case in July, saying Mr Smith’s appointment as special counsel was unconstitutional.

In another Supreme Court ­decision issued days before the immunity ruling, the judges concluded the Justice Department improperly charged some of the people who stormed the Capitol on January 6 by adopting an overly broad interpretation of an Enron-era obstruction statute.

The Wall Street Journal