Federal authorities file new indictment against Trump from Jan. 6, upholding charges but narrowing scope

WASHINGTON (AP) — Special prosecutor Jack Smith filed a new indictment Tuesday against Donald Trump in his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election that maintains the identical criminal charges but narrows the charges against him based on a Supreme Court opinion that granted broad immunity to former presidents.

The new indictment removes a bit that accused Trump of attempting to use the Justice Department’s law enforcement powers to overturn his election defeat, an area of ​​the case where the Supreme Court, in a 6-3 opinion last month, ruled Trump was immune from prosecution.

The scaled-down criminal case represents prosecutors’ first try to comply with a Supreme Court ruling that nearly actually says the Republican presidential candidate won’t face trial before the November election on a charge of attempting to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power.

That got here days before prosecutors and defense attorneys were set to inform the judge overseeing the case how they need to proceed in light of a Supreme Court ruling that found presidents are presumptively immune from prosecution for official White House actions. The high court sent the case back to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who must now analyze which counts within the indictment were unofficial actions — or those taken in Trump’s private capability — that would go to trial.

Prosecutors and Trump’s legal team will return to court next week for his or her first hearing in months before Chutkan, on condition that the case has been effectively frozen since last December as Trump’s immunity appeal worked its way through the justice system.

In an announcement posted on his Truth Social platform, Trump called the new indictment an “act of desperation” and an “attempt to resurrect a ‘dead’ witch hunt.” He added that the new case has “all the problems of the old indictment and should be dismissed immediately.”

The special counsel’s office said the updated indictment, filed in federal court in Washington, was issued by a grand jury that had not previously heard evidence within the case. The statement said the indictment “reflects the government’s efforts to respect and implement Supreme Court rulings and referral instructions.”

The new indictment removes references to charges that might be considered official acts for which Trump is entitled to immunity under the Supreme Court ruling. That includes allegations that Trump tried to pull the Justice Department into his failed bid to reverse his election loss, including by conducting sham investigations and falsely reporting to states that he had discovered significant fraud.

In its opinion, the Supreme Court found that the president’s interactions with the Justice Department constitute official acts for which he’s entitled to immunity.

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The original indictment detailed how Jeffrey Clark, a senior official in Trump’s Justice Department, sought to send a letter to elected officials in certain states falsely claiming the department had “identified serious concerns that could have affected the outcome of the election,” but senior department officials refused.

Clark’s support for Trump’s election fraud allegations prompted Trump to openly consider appointing him as acting attorney general to switch Jeffrey Rosen, who led the department in the ultimate weeks of the Trump administration. Trump ultimately backed down from that concept “when told it would lead to mass resignations at the Department of Justice,” in response to the unique indictment. Rosen remained acting attorney general for the rest of Trump’s term.

The new case now not refers to Clark as a co-conspirator. Trump’s alleged co-conspirators should not named in either indictment, but the small print clearly indicate their identities. The new indictment emphasizes that not one of the other co-conspirators “were government officials at the time of the conspiracies and all acted in their private capacities.”

The new indictment also removes references to Trump’s communications with federal government officials — reminiscent of senior White House lawyers — who told him there was no evidence of fraud that will change the consequence of the 2020 election. It also removes references to a few of Trump’s statements, including a claim he made during a White House news conference two days after the election about suspected vote-dumping in Detroit.

The new indictment includes certainly one of the more shocking allegations made by Smith — that Trump participated in a conspiracy orchestrated by allies to recruit fake electors in key battleground states won by Democrat Joe Biden who would falsely certify that Trump had won those states.

The document also reiterates allegations that Trump tried to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to reject valid electoral votes and that Trump and his allies exploited the chaos on the Capitol on Jan. 6 to further delay the certification of Biden’s victory.

Chief Justice Roberts wrote in his majority opinion that the interactions between Trump and Pence constituted official conduct for which “Trump is at least presumptively immune.”

The query, Roberts wrote, is whether or not the federal government can rebut the “presumption of immunity.”

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from the ruling. In an excerpt from an interview with CBS News’ “Sunday Morning” that aired Tuesday, she said: “I was concerned about a system that seemed to give immunity to one person in one set of circumstances. When we have a criminal justice system that has traditionally treated everyone the same.”