Jack Smith, who leads the investigation into the former president, has emphasised his desire for “a speedy trial”—presumably one that might be held before the November 2024 election. Yet much could depend on the outcome of that vote
. On August 1st he became the first to battle two sets of federal charges at the same time. The Department of Justice accused the former president of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election—a race he still insists he won—in violation of three federal laws. The new charges are theagainst Mr Trump, and will inject yet more jeopardy into the 2024 presidential race.
The new charges follow a lengthy process. A 17-month investigation by a congressional committee advised theto bring criminal charges. In December Jack Smith, who was appointed special counsel by Merrick Garland, the attorney-general, took up that mantle in what became an eight-month investigation of his own. The probe culminated in Mr Smith’s decision to charge Mr Trump with criminal liability for his efforts to remain in the White House despite losing the election in 2020.
Rather than try to tie Mr Trump’s words to the rioters’ actions in an incitement charge, Mr Smith meticulously outlines how his efforts in the days and weeks after the election amounted to a conspiracy to defraud America, obstruct Congress’s official proceeding certifying the election, and deprive Americans of their civil rights by wiping away their votes for Joe Biden. Mr Trump’s claims of widespread election fraud “were false”, the document reads, and Mr Trump “knew that they were false”.
The former president solicited a lot of help in trying to upend his electoral loss, the document asserts. Mr Smith refers—not by name but by their respective roles in the scheme—to six co-conspirators, including a quintet of lawyers. He did not announce charges against any of them. But he hinted that they should not rest easy.
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