Trump Charged With ‘Destabilizing Lies’ in 3 Conspiracies to Overturn His Defeat

Former President Donald Trump was indicted on Tuesday in connection with his widespread efforts to overturn the 2020 election, following a sprawling federal investigation into his attempts to cling to power after losing the presidency.

The indictment, filed by special counsel Jack Smith in U.S. District Court in Washington, accuses Trump of three conspiracies: one to defraud the United States; a second to obstruct an official government proceeding, the certification of the Electoral College vote; and a third to deprive people of a civil right, the right to have their votes counted. Trump was also charged with a fourth count of obstructing or attempting to obstruct an official proceeding.

“Each of these conspiracies — which built on the widespread mistrust the defendant was creating through pervasive and destabilizing lies about election fraud — 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,” the indictment said.

The charges signify an extraordinary moment in United States history: a former president, in the midst of a campaign to return to the White House, being charged over attempts to use the levers of government power to subvert democracy and remain in office against the will of voters.

In sweeping terms, the indictment described how Trump and six co-conspirators employed a variety of means to reverse his defeat in the election almost from the moment voting ended.

It depicted how Trump promoted false claims of fraud, sought to bend the Justice Department toward supporting those claims, oversaw a scheme to create false slates of electors pledged to him in states that were actually won by Joe Biden and ultimately pressured his vice president, Mike Pence, to use the fake electors to subvert the certification of the election at a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021 that was cut short by the violence at the Capitol.

The indictment did not name the co-conspirators, but the descriptions of their behavior match publicly known episodes involving prominent people around Trump.

For instance, the behavior of “Co-conspirator 1” appears to align with that of Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer whom he put in charge of efforts to deny the transfer of power after his main campaign lawyers made clear it was over. And the description of “Co-conspirator 2” tracks closely with that of John Eastman, a California law professor who served as the architect of the plan to pressure Pence.

The co-conspirators could be charged at any point, and their inclusion in the indictment — even unnamed — places pressure on them to potentially cooperate with investigators.

Many of the details in the charges were familiar, having appeared either in news media accounts or in the work of the House select committee investigating Jan. 6. There were descriptions of Trump’s attempt to install a loyalist, Jeffrey Clark, atop the Justice Department and to strong-arm the secretary of state of Georgia into finding him enough votes to win the election in that state.

There were also references to Trump posting a message on Twitter in mid-December 2020 calling for a “wild” protest in Washington on Jan. 6 and to pressuring Pence to try to throw the election his way during the joint session of Congress that day.

But the indictment also contained some snippets of new information, such as a description of Trump telling Pence, “You’re too honest,” as the vice president pushed back on Trump’s pressure to interfere in the certification of Biden’s victory.

It also included an account of Trump telling someone who asked if he wanted additional pressure put on Pence that “no one” else but him needed to speak with the vice president.

Smith, in drafting his charging document, walked a cautious path in connecting Trump to the mob attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6. The indictment mentioned Trump’s “exploitation of the violence and chaos” at the building that day, but did not accuse him of inciting the riot.

It also laid out how Trump was repeatedly told that he had lost the election and that his claims that he had been cheated were false by multiple people, including top officials in his campaign and at the Justice Department. That sort of evidence could help prosecutors prove their accusations by establishing Trump’s intent.

The indictment came more than 2 1/2 years after a pro-Trump mob — egged on by incendiary speeches by Trump and his allies — stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 in the worst attack on the seat of Congress since the War of 1812.

It also came a little more than seven months after Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Smith, a career federal prosecutor, to oversee both the election tampering and classified documents inquiries into Trump. It followed by just over a year a series of high-profile hearings held by the House Jan. 6 committee, which laid out extensive evidence of Trump’s efforts to reverse the election results.

Garland moved to name Smith as special counsel in November, just days after Trump declared that he was running for president again.

In a brief appearance before reporters, Smith set out what he said was the former president’s moral, as well as legal, responsibility for violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, saying the riot was “fueled by lies” — Trump’s lies.

Trump, the front-runner for the Republican nomination, has incorporated attacking the investigations into his campaign messaging and fundraising. His advisers have been blunt in private conversations that they see his winning the election as crucial to undoing the charges against him.

In a statement, Trump denounced the indictment.

“Why did they wait two and a half years to bring these fake charges, right in the middle of President Trump’s winning campaign for 2024?” he said, calling it “election interference” and comparing the Biden administration to Nazi Germany.

The judge assigned to Trump’s case, Tanya S. Chutkan, has been a tough jurist in cases against Jan. 6 rioters — and in a case that involved Trump directly. Appointed by President Barack Obama, she has routinely issued harsh penalties against people who stormed the Capitol.

She also denied Trump’s attempt to avoid disclosing documents to the House committee investigating Jan. 6, ordering him to turn over the material and writing, “Presidents are not kings.”

His lead lawyer on the case, John Lauro, laid out what appeared to be the beginning of his defense, telling Fox News, “I would like them to try to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Donald Trump believed that these allegations” about voter fraud “were false.”

Trump now faces two separate federal indictments. In June, Smith brought charges in Florida accusing Trump of illegally holding on to a highly sensitive trove of national defense documents and then obstructing the government’s attempts to get them back.

In addition to federal charges in the election and documents cases, Trump also faces legal troubles in state courts.

He has been charged by the Manhattan district attorney’s office in a case that centers on hush money payments made to porn actress Stormy Daniels in the run-up to the 2016 election.

The efforts by Trump and his allies to reverse his election loss are also the focus of a separate investigation by the district attorney in Fulton County, Georgia. That inquiry appears likely to generate charges this month.

It seems likely that he will face the prospect of at least three criminal trials next year, even as he is campaigning for the presidency. The Manhattan trial is scheduled to begin in March, and the federal documents case in Florida is set to go to trial in May.