WASHINGTON (AP) — 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.
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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.
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 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’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.”
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 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 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!”
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