WASHINGTON — Follow along for live updates on the Justice Department’s indictment of former President Donald Trump over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. The charges focus on schemes by Trump and his allies to subvert the transfer of power and keep him in office despite his loss to Joe Biden.
___
THE JUDGE ASSIGNED TO TRUMP’S JAN. 6 CASE IS A TOUGH PUNISHER OF CAPITOL RIOTERS
The federal judge assigned to the election fraud case against former President Donald Trump has stood out as one of the toughest punishers of rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attack fueled by Trump’s baseless claims of a stolen election. She has also ruled against him before.
Trump is to appear Thursday before U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, a former assistant public defender who was nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama. She often has handed down prison sentences in Jan. 6, 2021, riot cases that are harsher than Justice Department prosecutors recommended.
Chutkan has ruled against Trump before in a separate Jan. 6 case.
In November 2021, she refused his request to block the release of documents to the U.S. House’s Jan. 6 committee by asserting executive privilege. She rejected his arguments that he could hold privilege over documents from his administration even after President Joe Biden had cleared the way for the National Archives to turn the papers over.
In a memorable line from her ruling, Chutkan wrote, “Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President.”
TRUMP’S 2024 GOP RIVALS HAVE MIXED REACTIONS TO THE INDICTMENT AGAINST HIM
Donald Trump’s rivals for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination are giving mixed reactions to the latest indictment filed against him.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, his closest rival, did not defend Trump. But DeSantis said in a post Tuesday on the X platform, formerly known as Twitter, that he would “end weaponization of government, replace the FBI Director, and ensure a single standard of justice for all Americans” if elected president.
Former Texas congressman Will Hurd and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, two of Trump’s most vocal critics in the field, issued statements saying Trump should not be the next U.S. president.
Trump’s “denial of the 2020 election results and actions on Jan. 6 show he’s unfit for office,” Hurd said in a post on X.
Hutchinson said in a statement that Trump “is morally responsible for the attack on our democracy,” and should end his presidential campaign “for the good of the country.”
Trump received a staunch defense from biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who has campaigned as someone ideologically aligned with Trump and even promised to pardon him should he win the White House.
Ramaswamy said Trump “isn’t the real cause for what happened on Jan 6” but instead blamed the riot on “systematic and pervasive censorship of citizens.”
PENCE CONDEMNS TRUMP’S ACTIONS SURROUNDING JAN. 6 U.S. CAPITOL RIOT
Former Vice President Mike Pence on Tuesday issued his strongest condemnation yet of Donald Trump for the former president’s actions surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol, which forced Pence to hide as some in the mob chanted “Hang Mike Pence.”
Pence, in a statement after prosecutors indicted Trump for his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, said the charges serve as an important reminder that “anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be President of the United States.”
Pence is now challenging Trump, his former boss and running mate, for the 2024 GOP nomination, but he is badly trailing him in the race. Pence has at times tiptoed around Trump or offered careful criticism.
But in his statement Tuesday, Pence said Trump on Jan. 6 demanded that he choose between Trump and the Constitution, and that he chose the Constitution.
“Our country is more important than one man. Our constitution is more important than any one man’s career,” he said.
INDICTMENT DESCRIBES ALLEGED TRUMP PRESSURE ON PENCE TO DELAY OR STOP ELECTION CERTIFICATION
The indictment filed against Donald Trump follows closely the account of the insurrection detailed by the 18-month U.S. House investigation of the 2021 Capitol insurrection. But it also produces new evidence that was not detailed in the final report of the House’s Jan. 6 Committee.
The report lists several conversations between Trump and Vice President Mike Pence in which Trump attempted to persuade Pence to delay certification of the 2020 election or reject the presidential electors. In one call, on Jan. 1, 2021, Trump told Pence, “You’re too honest,” according to the indictment.
Pence, who fled the mob of rioters at the Capitol, declined to testify before the House committee. But he testified before the federal grand jury investigating Trump.
The new details shed light on how the vice president was pressured by Trump, and Pence responded: “You know I don’t think I have the authority to change the outcome.”
Trump and his co-conspirators first sought to convince Pence to reject or not count legitimate electoral votes during the certification set for Jan. 6, according to the indictment.
When that failed, Trump and his co-conspirators on the morning of Jan. 6 falsely told a crowd of supporters gathered in Washington that Pence had the power to interfere in the election results and directed them to the Capitol to obstruct the certification of the vote and pressure Pence, the indictment says.
TRUMP REPEATEDLY REFUSED TO TELL JAN. 6 RIOTERS TO LEAVE US CAPITOL, INDICTMENT SAYS
The indictment filed against Donald Trump details his alleged actions — and, at times, willful lack of action — surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol by his supporters.
Despite Trump’s mounting legal challenges elsewhere, the charges filed Tuesday are the first time the former president is being formally held to account for his actions in the run-up to the violent mob siege of the Capitol. About 1,000 people have been charged in the attack, some serving lengthy sentences.
As rioters ransacked the Capitol and disrupted the certification of the 2020 election results, Trump “repeatedly refused to approve a message” directing them to leave, the indictment alleges. He allegedly resisted the urgings of Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, and several other top officials.
The indictment accuses Trump and his allies of exploiting the disruption caused by the violence and redoubling their efforts to spread false claims of election fraud.
On the evening of Jan. 6, as the Capitol was being cleared of rioters, Trump and an unnamed co-conspirator in the indictment called lawmakers to try to convince them to delay the certification, the indictment says.
JUSTICE’S INVESTIGATION OF TRUMP LARGEST IN DEPARTMENT’S HISTORY, ATTORNEY GENERAL GARLAND SAYS
Attorney General Merrick Garland said the Justice Department’s investigation of Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election “followed the facts and the law wherever they lead.”
Garland made brief comments in Philadelphia on Tuesday shortly after Trump was indicted for the second time by the federal government he once ran.
Garland appointed special counsel Jack Smith last year to take over the investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol and Trump’s efforts overturn the election results.
Garland said the investigation, which led to Trump facing four charges of conspiracy and obstruction, was the largest in the department’s history.
The Justice Department has also charged Trump with 40 counts related to the mishandling of classified documents. Smith also oversaw that investigation.
TRUMP TO MAKE THIRD COURT APPEARANCE AS A CRIMINAL DEFENDANT ON THURSDAY
For the third time, Donald Trump is scheduled to appear in a courtroom as a criminal defendant.
Trump is due in court Thursday before U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington for the charges he faces related to his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Trump faces four counts of conspiracy in the indictment released Tuesday, including “conspiracy to defraud” the United States.
In April, Trump appeared in a New York state courtroom to plead not guilty to 34 charges in a hush money scheme stemming from the 2016 election.
In June, he appeared in federal court in Florida to plead not guilty to 37 charges that he illegally hoarded classified documents. Last week, prosecutors filed additional charges in that case, alleging that he asked a staffer to delete camera footage at his Florida home to obstruct a federal probe into the records. He now faces 40 counts in that case.
Trump is the first former president to face an indictment and the first former U.S. president to be prosecuted by the government he once ran.
JAN. 6 ATTACK ON U.S. CAPITOL ‘FUELED BY LIES’ FROM TRUMP, SPECIAL COUNSEL SAYS
Justice Department Special counsel Jack Smith, whose team of prosecutors questioned senior Trump administration officials before a grand jury in Washington, said that the Jan, 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol was “fueled by lies” from Donald Trump.
Smith made a brief statement in Washington shortly after the indictment against the former president was released Tuesday.
“The attack on our nation’s capital on January 6, 2021, was an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy,” Smith said, adding that the law enforcement officers who defended the Capitol that day were heroes.
Smith said he’d seek a speedy trial for the former president.
Trump is due in court Thursday before U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan.
TRUMP SOUGHT TO CREATE “ATMOSPHERE OF MISTRUST AND ANGER,” INDICTMENT SAYS
The indictment filed against Donald Trump lays out how again and again, Republican state officials, Justice Department officials and the president’s own campaign staff refuted his false claims about the 2020 election — including those “on whom he relied for candid advice on important matters.”
For example, Trump claimed more than 10,000 dead people voted in Georgia four days after that state’s top elections official told him that was not true. He contended that there were 205,000 more votes than voters in Pennsylvania after his own Acting Attorney General told him that was not true. He alleged more than 30,000 non-citizens voted in Arizona even though his own campaign manager said that was false.
Prosecutors also described a Jan. 3, 2021, meeting between Trump and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley on an overseas national security issue.
Milley and another adviser recommended that Trump not take action on the issue because inauguration day was only 17 days away. “Yeah, you’re right, it’s too late for us,” Trump said, according to the indictment. “We’re going to give that to the next guy.”
Trump knew his election lies were false, but pushed them anyway to create an “intense national atmosphere of mistrust and anger” and “erode public faith in the administration of the election,” the indictment alleges.
MONTHSLONG EFFORT TO CHANGE RESULTS BECAME CRIMINAL, INDICTMENT SAYS
Federal prosecutors said in their indictment of Trump that he had the right to formally challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election but his behavior became criminal over a monthslong effort that attempted to discount legitimate voters and subvert the results.
Trump had a right, like every American, “to speak publicly about the election and even to claim, falsely, that there had been outcome-determinative fraud during the election and that he had won” prosecutors said in the court documents filed Tuesday.
“He was also entitled to formally challenge the results of the election, and to file lawsuits — which he did. But shortly after the election, Trump also broke the law by pursuing illegal ways to overturn the election,” the indictment said.
The indictment describes a monthslong plan, from Nov. 14, 2020 to Jan. 20, 2021, as Trump and the others conspired to defraud the United States.
“The purpose of the conspiracy was to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election,” the indictment said.
PROSECUTORS: FAKE ELECTOR RECRUITMENT WAS ATTEMPT TO OBSTRUCT THE VOTE
Federal prosecutors allege that the efforts by Trump and his allies to recruit fake electors after his loss in the 2020 presidential election attempted “to obstruct the electoral vote through deceit of state officials.”
In the indictment filed Tuesday, prosecutors said Trump and his unnamed co-conspirators knowingly made false claims of election fraud to convince officials in seven battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — to submit fraudulent slates of electors.
Electors are people appointed by state parties to certify the winner of the popular vote in their state.
Prosecutors said that after Trump’s attempts to deceive state officials “met with repeated failure,” he began in early December 2020 to “marshal individuals who would have served” as his electors in those states and to send false certifications stating that they were legitimate presidential electors.
On Dec. 14, 2020, the day that the legitimate electors met in all 50 states, prosecutors said Trump and an unnamed co-conspirator directed “sham proceedings” of fraudulent electors in the seven targeted states.
The indictment alleges that some fake electors were tricked and falsely led to believe that their votes would be used only if Trump was successful in his legal challenges in their state. It also alleges that Trump attempted to use the Justice Department to conduct “sham election crime investigations” and send a letter to certain states that falsely claimed investigators had identified concerns about the election.
TRUMP LIED EVEN AFTER BEING WARNED BY TOP OFFICIALS, INDICTMENT SAYS
Trump repeatedly lied about the election even after being warned off his false statements by top government officials, according to the indictment filed against him Tuesday.
Prosecutors cited an example in Georgia, where Trump claimed more than 10,000 dead people voted in four days after that state’s top elections official told him that was not true. Trump lost Georgia to Democrat Joe Biden.
The Republican contended that there were 205,000 more votes than voters in Pennsylvania after his own acting attorney general told him that was not true. He alleged more than 30,000 noncitizens voted in Arizona even though his own campaign manager said that was false.
TRUMP CAMPAIGN CALLS LATEST INDICTMENT PART OF ‘WITCH HUNT’
Trump’s campaign issued a statement calling the third indictment of the former president “nothing more than the latest corrupt chapter” in what the campaign characterized as a politically motivated “witch hunt.”
In a lengthy statement issued as the indictment was released Tuesday, Trump’s campaign complained about the timing, asking why it had taken prosecutors two-and-a-half years to bring the charges, in the middle the campaign and as Republicans ramp up their investigations into President Joe Biden.
“The answer is, election interference!” the statement said.
The campaign stated that “President Trump has always followed the law and the Constitution, with advice from many highly accomplished attorneys.”
PROSECUTORS SAY TRUMP KNEW HIS LIES ABOUT ELECTION WERE FALSE
Federal prosecutors said in the indictment filed Tuesday that Trump knew his lies about his loss in the 2020 presidential election were false but pushed them anyway.
Prosecutors said that for two months after his loss on Nov. 3, 2020, the Republican spread lies to create an “intense national atmosphere of mistrust and anger” and “erode public faith in the administration of the election.”
Trump has been charged with four counts: conspiracy to defraud the U.S., conspiracy to obstruct Congress’ certification of Biden’s electoral victory on Jan. 6, obstruction and conspiracy against the right to vote.
Trump is the only defendant charged in the indictment, but it cites six unnamed co-conspirators, including an attorney “who was willing to spread knowingly false claims and pursue strategies” that Trump’s 2020 campaign attorneys would not.
Another co-conspirator is an attorney whose “unfounded claims of election fraud” Trump privately acknowledged to others sounded “crazy,” the indictment said.
TRUMP CHARGED ON FOUR COUNTS, INCLUDING CONSPIRACY TO DEFRAUD
Trump has been charged by the Justice Department on four counts, including conspiracy to defraud the United States, for his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
The indictment filed Tuesday night is the third criminal case filed against the former president and current frontrunner in the 2024 GOP presidential race.
The 45-page indictment said Trump after his 2020 loss was “determined to remain in power” and perpetrated conspiracies that targeted a “bedrock function of the United States federal government: the nation’s process of collecting, counting and certifying the results of the presidential election.”
A Trump spokesperson likened the new indictment to “Nazi Germany in the 1930s, the former Soviet Union, and other authoritarian, dictatorial regimes,” calling them “un-American.”
TRUMP INDICTED FOR EFFORTS TO OVERTURN 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
Donald Trump has been charged by the Justice Department for his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
The indictment focuses on schemes by Trump and his allies to subvert the transfer of power and keep him in office despite his loss to Joe Biden. It’s the third criminal case brought against the former president as he seeks to reclaim the White House.
The criminal case comes as Trump leads the field of Republicans seeking their party’s 2024 presidential nomination. It centers on the turbulent two months between Trump’s November 2020 election loss and the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot. Trump denies doing anything wrong.
Shortly before the indictment was unsealed, Trump accused Smith’s team of trying to interfere with the election with what he called “yet another Fake Indictment.”
“Why didn’t they do this 2.5 years ago? Why did they wait so long?” he asked on his Truth Social site. “Because they wanted to put it right in the middle of my campaign. Prosecutorial Misconduct!”
Donald Trump was charged Tuesday in a Justice Department investigation into his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the run-up to the violent riot by his supporters at the U.S. Capitol.
The charges include conspiracy to defraud the United States government and witness tampering.
The indictment, the third criminal case brought against the former president as he seeks to reclaim the White House in 2024, follows a long-running federal investigation into schemes by Trump and his allies to subvert the peaceful transfer of power and keep him in office despite a decisive loss to Joe Biden.
Even in a year of rapid-succession legal reckonings for Trump, Tuesday’s criminal case was especially stunning in its allegations that a former president assaulted the underpinnings of democracy in a frantic and ultimately failed effort to cling to power.
Federal prosecutors say Donald Trump was “determined to remain in power” in conspiracies that targeted a “bedrock function of the United States federal government: the nation’s process of collecting, counting and certifying the results of the presidential election.”
Trump is due in court on Thursday before U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan.
The criminal case comes while Trump leads the field of Republicans vying to capture their party’s presidential nomination. It is sure to be dismissed by the former president and his supporters — and even some of his rivals — as just another politically motivated prosecution. Yet the charges stem from one of the most serious threats to American democracy in modern history.
They focus on the turbulent two months after the November 2020 election in which Trump refused to accept his loss and spread lies that victory was stolen from him. The turmoil resulted in the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, when Trump loyalists violently broke into the building, attacked police officers and disrupted the congressional counting of electoral votes.
In between the election and the riot, Trump urged local election officials to undo voting results in their states, pressured former Vice President Mike Pence to halt the certification of electoral votes and falsely claimed that the election had been stolen — a notion repeatedly rejected by judges.
The indictment had been expected since Trump said in mid-July that the Justice Department informed him he was a target of its long-running Jan. 6 investigation. A bipartisan House committee that spent months investigating the run-up to the Capitol riot also recommended prosecuting Trump on charges, including aiding an insurrection and obstructing an official proceeding.
The mounting criminal cases against Trump — not to mention multiple civil cases — are unfolding in the heat of the 2024 race. A conviction in this case, or any other, would not prevent Trump from pursuing the White House or serving as president.
In New York, state prosecutors have charged Trump with falsifying business records about a hush money payoff to a porn actor before the 2016 election. The trial begins in late March.
In Florida, the Justice Department has brought more than three dozen felony counts against Trump accusing him of illegally possessing classified documents after leaving the White House and concealing them from the government. The trial begins in late May.
The latest federal indictment against Trump focuses heavily on actions taken in Washington, and the trial will be held there, in a courthouse located between the White House he once occupied and the Capitol his supporters once stormed. No trial date has been set.
Prosecutors in Georgia are investigating efforts by Trump and his allies to reverse his election loss to Biden there in 2020. The district attorney of Fulton County is expected to announce a decision on whether to indict the former president in early August.
The investigation of Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election was led by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith. His team of prosecutors has questioned senior Trump administration officials before a grand jury in Washington, including Pence and top lawyers from the Trump White House.
Rudy Giuliani, a Trump lawyer who pursued post-election legal challenges, spoke voluntarily to prosecutors as part of a proffer agreement, in which a person’s statements can’t be used against them in any future criminal case that is brought.
Prosecutors also interviewed election officials in Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and elsewhere who came under pressure from Trump and his associates to change voting results in states won by Biden, a Democrat.
Focal points of the Justice Department’s election meddling investigation included the role played by some of Trump’s lawyers, post-election fundraising, a chaotic December 2020 meeting at the White House in which some Trump aides discussed the possibility of seizing voting machines and the enlistment of fake electors to submit certificates to the National Archives and Congress falsely asserting that Trump, not Biden, had won their states’ votes.
Trump has been trying to use the mounting legal troubles to his political advantage, claiming without evidence on social media and at public events that the cases are being driven by Democratic prosecutors out to hurt his 2024 election campaign.
The indictments have helped his campaign raise millions of dollars from supporters, though he raised less after the second than the first, raising questions about whether subsequent charges will have the same impact.
A fundraising committee backing Trump’s candidacy began soliciting contributions just hours after the ex-president revealed he was the focus of the Justice Department’s Jan. 6 investigation, casting it as “just another vicious act of Election Interference on behalf of the Deep State to try and stop the Silent Majority from having a voice in your own country.”
Attorney General Merrick Garland last year appointed Smith, an international war crimes prosecutor who also led the Justice Department’s public corruption section, as special counsel to investigate efforts to undo the 2020 election and Trump’s retention of hundreds of classified documents at his Palm Beach, Florida, home, Mar-a-Lago. Although Trump has derided him as “deranged” and suggested that he is politically motivated, Smith’s past experience includes overseeing significant prosecutions against high-profile Democrats.
The Justice Department’s investigation into the efforts to overturn the 2020 election began well before Smith’s appointment, proceeding alongside separate criminal probes into the Jan. 6 rioters themselves.
More than 1,000 people have been charged in connection with the insurrection, including some with seditious conspiracy.
____
Associated Press writers Colleen Long, Zeke Miller, Lindsay Whitehurst and Michael Kunzelman in Washington contributed to this report.
