Special Counsel Narrows Allegations Against Trump in 2020 Election Case in Superseding Indictment
Smith claims it “reflects the Government’s efforts to respect and implement the Supreme Court’s holdings and remand instructions in Trump v. United States.”
Special Counsel Jack Smith filed a superseding indictment against Donald Trump in the 2020 election case in D.C.
It’s doubtful the case will go to trial before the November election.
Smith narrowed the allegations after the Supreme Court’s immunity decision but applied the same charges:
Today, a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia returned a superseding indictment, ECF No. 226, charging the defendant with the same criminal offenses that were charged in the original indictment. The superseding indictment, which was presented to a new grand jury that had not previously heard evidence in this case, reflects the Government’s efforts to respect and implement the Supreme Court’s holdings and remand instructions in Trump v. United States, 144 S. Ct. 2312 (2024). The Government does not oppose waiver of the defendant’s appearance for arraignment on the superseding indictment. See Fed. R. Crim. P. 10(b). As this Court directed, ECF No. 197, the Government will confer with the defense and make a joint proposal, to the extent possible, regarding pretrial litigation in the status report due Friday.
The charges:
- Count 1: 18 U.S. Code § 371 – Conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud United States
- Count 2: 18 U.S. Code § 1512(k) – Conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding
- Count 3: 18 U.S. Code § 1512(c)(2),2 – Obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding
- Count 4: 18 U.S. Code § 241 – Conspiracy against rights
The original indictment had 45 pages. The new indictment only has 36 pages.
SCOTUS targeted Section 1512(c)(2) in the Fischer vs. US case but did not knock it out. The justices said Smith didn’t apply it properly. From the Fischer case:
To prove a violation of Section 1512(c)(2), the Government must establish that the defendant impaired the availability or integrity for use in an official proceeding of records, documents, objects, or as we earlier explained, other things used in the proceeding, or attempted to do so. See supra, at 9. The judgment of the D. C. Circuit is therefore vacated, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. On remand, the D. C. Circuit may assess the sufficiency of Count Three of Fischer’s indictment in light of our interpretation of Section 1512(c)(2).
Smith did not change the application of the charge: “From on or about November 13, 2020, through on or about January 7, 2021, in the District of Columbia and elsewhere, the Defendant, Donald J. Trump, attempted to, and did, corruptly obstruct and impede an official proceeding, that is, the certification of the electoral vote.”
I need to compare the language in the original indictment and the new language to see if anything changed, but I doubt nothing did.
Smith removed the section accusing Trump of trying to leverage the DOJ to go after state officials, which took up five pages. It also means that Smith removed Jeff Clark, coconspirator 4.
The special counsel also took out Trump’s alleged false statements and inserted general language.
The new indictment points out “the political and personal nature” of Trump’s alleged reactions on January 6, 2021.
Smith also described Mike Pence as vice president and Trump’s running mate in the accusation that he tried to pressure Pence not to certify the election.
Also, lots more emphasis in the new document about how Trump danced between official and private duties: pic.twitter.com/iM0oL5sAkj
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) August 27, 2024
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Comments
the only guilty parties in this are the communist nazi loving dnc and any gop who helped them cheat by not supporting the rule of law…such as
not taking PA to court over their breaking of the law regarding vote counts..those who “found” mail in ballots when needed by the dnc
who wouldnt allow vote ballot watchers to do their job
to send people home and stop the vote counting only to start up the counting when the people you wanted to count the votes were there etc etc etc
cjbx100000
correction
fjbx1000000
A superseding indictment that keeps “obstruction of an official proceeding”?
A DC jury will convict Trump no matter if the charge applies or not,…heck, I’d bet the farm that a jury made up of DC residents would convict Trump of flying into the Pentagon on 9/11
So true
Heinz Smith would have the jury convict Trump for killing Lincoln
Or for Crimes against Dignity for the “Trump House of Wings” sketch on SNL.
Yeah, I wonder how that will work since he didn’t apply it differently, I have to reread the original indictment and compare the wording to the paragraphs he applied it to.
What happened to the case about Smith not being qualified to make these charges as he’s not an officer of the government appointed by Congress or something like that??
Jack Smith appealed to the 11th circuit court.
Now I know why he appealed yesterday. In order to refile this indictment.
Yes he has sure been a busy little thug. And way to follow DOJ policy not to interfere 60 days before an election by indicting a candidate, again, less than 60 days before early voting.
This ….. waiting to see if
the judge in Fla who dismissed
the case reacts ….
Mike Davis said…Trump files presidential immunity.
Denied.
Appeal to DC circuit.
Denied.
Us scotus.
Election goes to trump.
Case tossed.
Wishful thinking
Supreme Court
No standing
Most likely
Don’t be fooled or take this lightly.
Trump is gonna need money and he needs it now.
Step up, patriots everywhere.
It is now crunch time.
Jack Smith is “special”. What a load of crap!
Special. As in “Olympics.”
Why hasn’t Smith been arrested?
For what?
Impersonating a U.S. Attorney?
Election interference?
He is a prosecutor duly hired by the Attorney General, so he has the right to prosecute cases just like any AUSA. The question is who supervises him, and how closely.
In any case, who could arrest him for that, if not the Attorney General, who is the one who hired him and told him to do what he’s doing?
And “election interference” isn’t a crime. Which is why despite all his press releases he never actually charged Trump with that.
Yes. It is of the utmost importance that we do things strictly by the book, otherwise the Republic might be lost …… Oops.
There you go again, stating what is true.
The Indictment Bot strikes again!
If this case ever goes to trial, it will end as the NYC case did with a unanimous guilty verdict. Only Trump haters are on the Grand Jury and there is no fairness at the GJ hearing presentation. If the election is over and the DoJ is made whole again, Trump will be found not guilty.
Grand Juries by nature are unfair, since only one side gets to present its case.
Grand Juries don’t convict.
The excellent TV series Veep, which becomes right wing via mocking what voters vote for and so worth watching, in Season 5 episodes 1-2 goes through what the Constitution provides in the case of a contested election before a joint session of Congress. The plot point is that everything that can go wrong with the election does go wrong, which is probably where we’re at too. The indictments ought to account for the existence of that Constitutional provision.
Smith is a D.i.c.k.
Let’s face the facts. Obama and Holder told Jack Smith to file the appeal and the superseding indictment. This is all to set up a distraction. I will bet that this indictment will be question number one at next week’s debate. Along with ready made political commercials from the demonrats. FKH
Jesus, Mandela, Ghandi
Trump
Jack Smith shouldn’t be filing anything. Nobody should be exercising the powers of a US attorney without being confirmed by congress. The judge in Florida had it right
No question. I think it’s notable that this issue wasn’t pushed by some fringe rightwing podcaster or legal group. Instead, it was Reagan AG Ed Meese and Bushworld AG Michael Mukasey (who has been critical of Trump himself at times), who first drew attention to the fact that Smith’s ‘appointment’ was constitutionally infirm.
Maybe so, but it’s a novel ruling with which he’s entitled to disagree. No court in this case has yet so ruled, so he’s entitled to proceed until a court tells him to stop.
I’d call the indictments novel and the ruling common sense.
The indictments are just garbage. But the ruling is extremely novel, reflecting a Seth Tillman original theory. Tillman is brilliant, and he’s almost always right (maybe always), but his theories are new and untested. Generally people make fun of them the first time they hear them; then they start thinking and realize that he makes a good case; and then the courts adopt them.
This is another one that’s likely to be adopted by the courts, but that hasn’t happened yet, except in one district in Florida.
I left this comment elsewhere when SCOTUS made its ruling on the separation of the “official” from the “non-official.” It applies here as well as this test has yet to be applied:
I think a major problem will remain after disentangling of Trump’s “official” acts from his “personal acts” – many of the latter will be found to be constitutionally-protected speech and/or “petitioning government.”
The Constitution doesn’t limit the right to petition government to a judicial process (such as that pursued by Gore in his election challenge in Florida). A “petition” is also a request to an elected official, an agency, or any other government office, asking for a specific action or grant. Trump, while POTUS, still has the ability to act as a citizen (as SCOTUS agrees by its command to separate the “official” from the “personal”), and his contacts with Pence, the GA AG, and others, concerning the election almost certainly (if they aren’t “official”) fall into the category of “petitioning government”, asking for action from the parties he petitioned.
Did Trump request criminal acts from those he petitioned? If so, so what? A citizen can’t be required to know the law when petitioning government. Such a requirement would chill the exercise of the right (by creating a fear of criminal liability for merely asking for something from the government – “petitioning” is a constitutionally-protected act and the exercise of a right can’t be converted into a crime). It’s up to those petitioned to reply, “I can’t do that, it’s illegal,” or, “I can’t do that, it’s not within my authority.”
Furthermore, if Trump did ask for criminal acts, such asks would be, by their nature, beyond the authority of a POTUS (not being authorized to break the law), and therefore must be considered “personal” petitions, and my argument above would apply.
*****
Didn’t Jonathan Turley say something similar?
“If you take a red pen to all of the material presumptively protected by the First Amendment, you can reduce much of the indictment to haiku…”
Yes to all of this. The entire case is garbage.
The Florida case is the only one where the allegations, if proven, could be actual crimes. In all the other cases Trump need hardly even dispute the alleged facts, because they don’t add up to a crime.
I think some people have a fundamental misunderstanding of the issue with the prosecutor’s appointment. They think that without being a superior officer he can’t prosecute anyone. But that’s not true. Any inferior officer such as an AUSA can do that.
The difference is that an AUSA’s work is closely supervised by a USA. The USA will get regular updates of what the AUSA is doing, and will be consulted for major decisions. Smith’s appointment can be fixed immediately by assigning him to one of the USAs as an assistant, or else Garland himself could take over his supervision.
The problem with that would be not legal but political: if Smith is working under Garland’s close supervision, keeping him up to date on the cases and not making major decisions without consulting him, then he can hardly be called “independent”.
Now legally that should not be a problem; no law requires him to be independent. But the needs of public relations do so require; if he’s not independent then it means the administration is coordinating the prosecution, which goes against the whole “independent counsel” thing, and looks very like political interference, which of course it is.
Exactly on point. If the regulations the DOJ are claiming allow the AG to appoint whoever they want to carry out prosecutions of whatever they want without having Presidential appointment or Senate confirmation, the AG can manufacture whatever political prosecutions they want, however many they want, against whoever they want, controlled *only* by the AG. If that doesn’t scare the pants off anybody who respects the Constitution, the DOJ has a slush fund specifically set up to pay for this army of political prosecutors, isolated from Congressional control. I was originally skeptical about why Judge Cannon picked these two points to bounce Jack’s scam of a case, but the more I thought about it, the more obvious it became.
Why should this “scare the pants off anybody who respects the Constitution”? The constitution has no problem with this. The AG himself is an officer of the USA, properly appointed and confirmed, and has every legal right to assign an assistant to prosecute anyone whom he believes to have committed a crime.
How could it be otherwise? How can the AG have less power than a USA, who reports to him?
The problem with this is entirely political. Having the AG run a political prosecution looks bad. That’s why we have “independent” counsel — to give the administration political cover.
What Tillman is saying is that you can’t have it both ways: if you want an “independent” counsel then that person must be properly appointed and confirmed. If you don’t want to give it to someone like that, then the person can’t be independent.
Plus he has a “continually appropriating” slush fund to pay for these investigations & prosecutions. This limits the ability of Congress to perform effective oversight. It should be appropriated year by year, and the DoJ needs to account for what they are doing.
“Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.” Democrats are Stalinist thugs.
Hmmm, never a good idea to send the steak back to the chef.
The next indictment sought by Smith will charge President Trump as an accessory after the fact, with regard to George Zimmerman’s justified self-defense shooting of St. Trayvon of the Blessed Skittles.
What I fear it will come down to is that the coercive organs of state power will not allow any opposition to the Volksgerichtshof.
Subotai Bahadur