[ "Holding Trump accountable for his crimes pulls our democracy
back from the precipice and prevents his criminal attempt to overturn
an election from being forgotten or normalized," said one watchdog
leader. ]
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‘MOST SIGNIFICANT CHARGES YET’: TRUMP INDICTED FOR TRYING TO
OVERTURN 2020 ELECTION  
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Jessica Corbett
August 1, 2023
Common Dreams
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_ "Holding Trump accountable for his crimes pulls our democracy back
from the precipice and prevents his criminal attempt to overturn an
election from being forgotten or normalized," said one watchdog
leader. _

Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to supporters during a
political rally while campaigning for the GOP's 2024 presidential
nomination at Erie Insurance Arena in Pennsylvania on July 29, 2023,
Jeff Swensen/Getty Images

 

_THIS IS A BREAKING STORY… PLEASE CHECK BACK FOR POSSIBLE
UPDATES..._

Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday was indicted
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by a federal grand jury in Special Counsel Jack Smith's investigation
into efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and the
January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Trump—now the leading candidate for the GOP's 2024 presidential
nomination—faces four charges: 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 defendant lost the 2020 presidential election," the indictment
states. "Despite having lost, the defendant was determined to remain
in power. So for more than two months following Election Day on
November 3, 2020, the defendant spread lies that there had been
outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually
won."

"These claims were false, and the defendant knew that they were false.
But the defendant repeated and widely disseminated them anyway—to
make his knowingly false claims appear legitimate, create an intense
national atmosphere of mistrust and anger, and erode public faith in
the administration of the election," adds the document, which lists
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but does not identify six co-conspirators.

The election interference case has been assigned to Judge Tanya S.
Chutkan, an appointee of former President Barack Obama in the U.S.
District Court for the District of Columbia. _NBC News_noted
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that she "is the only federal judge in Washington, D.C., who has
sentenced January 6 defendants to sentences longer than the government
had requested."

Trump is expected to be arraigned in D.C. on Thursday before
Magistrate Judge Moxila A. Upadhyaya, according to
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Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) president
Noah Bookbinder said
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Tuesday that "the charges leveled against Donald Trump today are the
most significant he has yet faced because they address the most
serious offense he committed: trying to block the peaceful transfer of
power and keep himself in office despite losing the 2020 election by
inciting a violent insurrection."

"Had he succeeded, it would have effectively ended our almost
two-and-a-half-century experiment in democratic self-governance,"
added Bookbinder, a former federal prosecutor. "Jack Smith's
indictment cuts through Trump's propaganda to explicitly demonstrate
not just the facts, but the stakes of this case. Holding Trump
accountable for his crimes pulls our democracy back from the precipice
and prevents his criminal attempt to overturn an election from being
forgotten or normalized. Nothing could be more important for the
future of America."

Michael Waldman, president and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice
at New York University School of Law, said that "today's charges
matter beyond the fact that a former president is accused. Donald
Trump and his co-conspirators tried to overthrow American democracy."

"They wanted to negate the votes of millions of Americans. They did
this using phony claims of voter fraud and rigged elections. These
conspiracy theories are still being used to justify changes to voting
and election law all over the country," he emphasized. "Donald Trump
will stand trial. The Big Lie will be on trial too."

Stand Up America president and founder Sean Eldridge asserted that
"accountability is essential to protecting our democracy and our
freedom to vote, and today, Donald Trump is finally being held
accountable for his attack on the rule of law and the will of the
people."

"This indictment serves as a stark reminder of the danger Trump still
poses to our democracy," he stressed. "Time and time again, Trump has
demonstrated that he is unfit for the highest office in the land. To
protect our democracy and our fundamental freedoms, voters must make
sure he never sets foot in the White House again."

Common Cause interim co-president Marilyn Carpinteyro declared that
"no American is above the law—not even former presidents. The
charges that a federal grand jury leveled today against former
President Donald Trump are profoundly serious and must go to trial.
The charges themselves are unprecedented, but so are the events that
led to them."

The House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on
the United States Capitol "revealed the monthslong conspiracy to
overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election and
its culmination in the deadly insurrection," she noted. "Anyone and
everyone who broke the laws of this nation participating in that
conspiracy must be held accountable."

Public Citizen [[link removed]]
executive vice president Lisa Gilbert highlighted Tuesday that the
bipartisan congressional panel "recommended criminal charges
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for Trump's role in inciting an insurrection and the attempt to
overturn the 2020 election."

"The committee's work was based on reams of evidence obtained by
nonpartisan career prosecutors, intelligence officers, and national
security experts. Their recommendations were informed by more than one
hundred subpoenas, over 1,000 interviews and depositions, and more
than 140,000 documents," she said, welcoming the charges.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority
Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said in a joint statement:

The insurrection on January 6, 2021 was one of the saddest and most
infamous days in American history, personally orchestrated by Donald
Trump and fueled by his insidious Big Lie in an attempt to undermine
the 2020 election. In a deadly effort to overturn the will of the
American people and block the peaceful transition of power, our
nation's Capitol—the very symbol and home of American patriotism and
democracy—fell under attack to thousands of vicious and violent
rioters.

The third indictment of Mr. Trump illustrates in shocking detail that
the violence of that day was the culmination of a monthslong criminal
plot led by the former president to defy democracy and overturn the
will of the American people. This indictment is the most serious and
most consequential thus far and will stand as a stark reminder to
generations of Americans that no one, including a president of the
United States, is above the law. The legal process must continue to
move forward without any outside interference.

Trump was previously indicted in June
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as a result of Smith's classified documents probe and in April
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District Attorney Alvin Bragg's investigation into alleged hush money
payments during the 2016 election. He could
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also soon face charges stemming from Fulton County District Attorney
Fani Willis' probe of attempts to overturn Georgia's 2020 election
results.

The ex-president claimed
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social media Tuesday that the new "Fake Indictment" is an effort to
interfere with the next presidential election—an unsubstantiated
allegation repeated
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his campaign, which also took aim at his likely 2024 opponent,
Democratic President Joe Biden.

Some advocacy groups and constitutional experts argue that regardless
of the results of his legal issues, the 14th Amendment disqualifies
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holding office again because he incited the 2021 insurrection.

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel
free to republish and share widely.

 

Jessica Corbett is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.


* Donald Trump; Jan. 6 Insurrection; Election 2020; Election 2024;
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