August 2, 2023 Latest on Trump's indictment in 2020 election probe

Special counsel Jack Smith reentered the public eye on Tuesday with a grand jury’s indictment of Donald Trump over his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election leading up to the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.

Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, was indicted on four criminal counts: Conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights.

The former president already faced 40 counts stemming from Smith’s seperate probe into the former president’s retention of classified documents and conspiracy with a top aide and an employee at Mar-a-Lago to hide them from the government and his own attorneys.

Trump has denied wrongdoing in both cases and cast Smith’s probes as a weaponization of the federal government.

But Smith has investigated members of both parties, handling some of the most high-profile political corruption cases in recent memory – with mixed outcomes. His experience ranges from prosecuting a sitting US senator to bringing cases against gang members who were ultimately convicted of murdering New York City police officers.

Smith’s career spans multiple stints in the Justice Department and international courts, which until his appointment had allowed him to keep a relatively low profile in the oftentimes brassy legal industry.

After serving as a prosecutor at the local and federal levels as well as a stint at the International Criminal Court, Smith oversaw corruption cases as chief of the Justice Department’s public integrity unit from 2010 to 2015.

Smith was the head of the section when the department failed to convict former senator and vice-presidential candidate John Edwards, a Democrat, in a corruption case in 2012 and when then-Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican, was indicted in 2014. He also oversaw the investigation into former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a Republican, closing the probe in 2010 without bringing charges.

Smith would go on to serve as an assistant US attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, taking over as acting US attorney in early 2017. He became vice president of litigation for the Hospital Corporation of America later that year.

In recent years, Smith lived outside of the United States as the chief prosecutor for the special court in The Hague, a role he assumed in 2018 in which he investigated war crimes in Kosovo.

Special counsel Jack Smith said Tuesday that the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol was “fueled by lies” told by former President Donald Trump. The indictment of Trump on four new federal criminal charges, all related to the former president’s effort to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election, lays out some of those lies. Here is an abbreviated list:

1. The lie: Fraud changed the outcome of the 2020 election, that Trump “had actually won,” and that the election was “stolen.” (Pages 1 and 40-41 of the indictment)

Trump’s claim of a stolen election whose winner was determined by massive fraud was (and continues to be) his overarching lie about the election. The indictment asserts that Trump knew as early as 2020 that his narrative was false – and had been told as such by numerous senior officials in his administration and allies outside the federal government – but persisted in deploying it anyway, including on January 6 itself.

2. The lie: Fake pro-Trump Electoral College electors in seven states were legitimate electors. (Pages 5 and 26)

The indictment alleges that Trump and his alleged co-conspirators “organized” the phony slates of electors and then “caused” the slates to be transmitted to Vice President Mike Pence and other government officials to try to get them counted on January 6, the day Congress met to count the electoral votes.

3. The lie: The Justice Department had identified significant concerns that may have affected the outcome of the election. (Pages 6 and 27)

Attorney General William Barr and other top Justice Department officials had told Trump that his claims of major fraud had proved to be untrue. But the indictment alleges that Trump still sought to have the Justice Department “make knowingly false claims of election fraud to officials in the targeted states through a formal letter under the Acting Attorney General’s signature, thus giving the Defendant’s lies the backing of the federal government and attempting to improperly influence the targeted states to replace legitimate Biden electors with the Defendant’s.”

4. The lie: Pence had the power to reject Biden’s electoral votes. (Pages 6, 32-38)

Pence had repeatedly and correctly told Trump that he did not have the constitutional or legal right to send electoral votes back to the states as Trump wanted. The indictment notes that Trump nonetheless repeatedly declared that Pence could do so – first in private conversations and White House meetings, then in tweets on January 5 and January 6, then in Trump’s January 6 speech in Washington at a rally before the riot – in which Trump, angry at Pence, allegedly inserted the false claim into his prepared text even after advisors had managed to temporarily get it removed.

Read the full list here.

Unlike the cases involving hush money paid to an adult film actress or hoarding classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, it's impossible to separate President Joe Biden from the crimes former President Donald Trump was accused of committing in the indictment returned Tuesday.

It was Biden's election Trump sought to overturn. And Biden himself has already pinned blame on Trump for fomenting the crowds that stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

For Biden, Trump's third indictment is the most personal. But there is little question Biden will now say virtually nothing about the indictment, which was made public as the president and his wife were driving to dinner at the white clapboard Matt's Fish Camp along the Delaware coast. He doesn't want to provide Trump pretext for claiming political persecution and believes deeply that sitting presidents should not comment on ongoing legal matters.

The White House declined to comment on Trump's indictment Tuesday, referring questions to the Department of Justice. The White House learned of the indictment through media reports, a White House official said, as was the case with past indictments.

Still, Biden has a long history of publicly criticizing Trump for the events of that day and the effort to undo the Democrat's 2020 win. In private, Biden has been more forceful in his view that Trump should be held responsible for his actions, including telling advisers early in his term that his predecessor should be prosecuted, according to a person familiar with the matter.

However, Biden's political aides have determined that the risks of commenting outweigh the rewards, believing that seizing on Trump's indictment for political gain would only fuel Republican efforts to cast the indictments as politically motivated, rather than the action of an independent Justice Department.

The Biden campaign also intends to stick to its strategy from the previous indictment — not to comment or fundraise off of Trump's prosecution. How closely Biden can hew to that pledge when it comes to the latest indictment remains to be seen. Unlike the classified documents case, which Biden does not regularly reference in public, the threat to democracy is central to his reelection argument.

The opening frames of the video announcing his 2024 campaign were of rioters on January 6. And in comments to voters and donors alike, Biden has repeatedly warned of what it might mean should Trump return.

The historic indictment against Donald Trump in the special counsel’s probe into January 6, 2021, and efforts to overturn the 2020 election says that he “enlisted co-conspirators to assist him in his criminal efforts.”

As is common practice, their identities are withheld because they have not been charged with any crimes. CNN, however, can identify five of the six co-conspirators based on quotes in the indictment and other context.

They include:

Co-Conspirator 1 is former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani: Among other things, the indictment quotes from a voicemail that Co-Conspirator 1 left “for a United States Senator” on January 6, 2021. The quotes in the indictment match quotes from Giuliani’s call intended for GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville,��as reported by CNN and other outlets. Ted Goodman, a political adviser to Giuliani, said in a statement that the indictment “eviscerates the First Amendment.”

Co-Conspirator 2 is former Trump lawyer John Eastman: Among other things, the indictment says Co-Conspirator 2 “circulated a two-page memorandum” with a plan for Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the 2020 election while presiding over the Electoral College certification on January 6, 2021. The indictment quotes from the memo, and those quotes match a two-page memo that Eastman wrote, as reported and published by CNN.

Eastman's attorney Charles Burnham said the indictment “relies on a misleading presentation of the record,” and that his client would decline a plea deal if offered one.

Co-Conspirator 3 is former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell: The indictment says Co-Conspirator 3 “filed a lawsuit against the Governor of Georgia” on November 25, 2020, alleging “massive election fraud” and that the lawsuit was “dismissed” on December 7, 2020. These dates and quotations match the federal lawsuit that Powell filed against Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp. An attorney for Powell declined to comment.

Co-Conspirator 4 is former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark: The indictment identifies Co-Conspirator 4 as “a Justice Department official.” The indictment also quotes an email that a top Justice Department official sent to Clark, rebutting Clark��s attempts to use the department to overturn the election. The quotes in that email directly match quotes in an email sent to Clark, according to a Senate report about how Trump tried to weaponize the Justice Department in 2020. CNN has reached out to an attorney for Clark.

Co-Conspirator 5 is pro-Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro: Among other things, the indictment references an “email memorandum” that Co-Conspirator 5 “sent” to Giuliani on December 13, 2020, about the fake electors plot. The email sender, recipient, date, and content are a direct match for an email that Chesebro sent to Giuliani, according to a copy of the email made public by the House select committee that investigated January 6. CNN has reached out to an attorney for Chesebro.

The identity of Co-Conspirator 6 is unclear: The indictment says they are “a political consultant who helped implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding.” The indictment also further ties this person to the fake elector slate in Pennsylvania.

Some of the charges former President Donald Trump is facing for his attempt to overturn the 2020 election are tied to a very specific thing: “conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding” and “obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding.”

The official proceeding is the counting of electoral votes in the House chamber, which by law is supposed to occur on January 6 after every presidential election. The ceremonial process is governed by the Electoral Count Act, first passed in 1887 in the wake of the contested election of 1876, which also ripped the country apart.

Fast forward to January 2021 and Trump refusing to accept his election loss.

There were also friendly lawmakers promising to object to the inclusion of electoral votes from key states he lost, claiming election fraud that didn't happen. Trump openly called on his vice president, Mike Pence, to act unilaterally to reject those electors. He hoped friendly legislatures would overrule voters and sub in slates of fake electors his campaign had helped coordinate 

That, in a nutshell, was the plan to overturn the 2020 election.

One of the things both political parties — Republicans and Democrats — have agreed on in the years since the January 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol is that there should be no question that the vice president's role is nothing but ceremonial.

In December 2022, Congress passed the first legislative response to January 6 through the Electoral Count Reform Act.

The act also raised the threshold to make it harder for lawmakers to force votes attempting to overturn a state’s certified result. Additionally, it includes provisions that would prevent efforts to pass along fake electors to Congress.

Read more about the Electoral Count Act reform.

Former President Donald Trump is facing criminal charges over his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election and stay in office.

The indictment, which was handed down and unsealed Tuesday, describes the plot to overturn the 2020 election which culminated in the insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. Even before that, Trump engaged in a pressure campaign on state election workers, lawmakers and others, the indictment said.

You can read the entire document here.

As part of special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation, Trump was charged with:

Here’s what else we learned today:

The indictment of Donald Trump stemming from his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election marks the third time the former president has faced criminal charges. 

The latest case against Trump strikes at what's seen as his most serious betrayal of constitutional duties, when his attempts to remain in the White House after losing the 2020 election undermined the long-held American tradition of a peaceful transfer of presidential power.  

The plot to overturn the 2020 election shattered presidential norms and culminated in a previously unthinkable violent assault on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, as Congress met to certify President Joe Biden's victory.

For two months leading up to the attack, Trump had engaged in an unprecedented pressure campaign aimed at state election workers and lawmakers in a handful of battleground states, as well as Justice Department officials and even Trump’s own vice president to persuade them to throw out the 2020 results.  

Smith's move to indict the former president while he is running for a second term in the White House will test whether the criminal justice system can be used to hold Trump to account for his post-election conduct, after a House impeachment of the former president failed in the Senate in February 2021. 

The indictment marks the second time in two months that Smith has brought charges against Trump. In June, Trump was charged with retention of classified documents and conspiring with a top aide to hide them from the government and his own attorneys. And in March, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg indicted Trump on state charges of falsifying business records.   

Trump has pleaded not guilty in both of the prior cases — and is likely to do so again when he’s arraigned on the latest charges.  

The new special counsel indictment comes as Trump remains the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

Trump’s March indictment marked the first time in US history that a former president had faced criminal charges. Now there are three separate, concurrent cases where the president is facing criminal allegations – which are all going to play out as Trump seeks to return to the White House in 2024 following his loss to Joe Biden in 2020.