Trump accused of conspiring to rig US elections

Donald Trump has been indicted by a federal grand jury for 2020 election interference. CNN.

Photo: IStock

As part of the investigation by Special Counsel Jack Smith, Trump was charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, obstruction of a formal hearing and conspiracy against rights.

On August 3 at 16:00 pm, he is due to appear at the federal courthouse in Washington, DC.

“More than two months after Election Day on November 3, 2020, the defendant spread lies that there was fraud in the election that affected the outcome. The defendant claimed that he actually won, the indictment says. “These statements were false and the defendant knew them to be false.” But the defendant distributed them anyway, to make his obviously false statements appear legitimate. The purpose of these actions is to create a tense atmosphere of mistrust and anger and undermine public confidence in the election administration.”

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The plot to cancel the 2020 election culminated in the unthinkable attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, as Congress convened to confirm President Joe Biden's victory. Even before that, Trump launched an unprecedented campaign of pressure on government officials and lawmakers, officials in the Department of Justice, and even his vice president to not recognize the results of the 2020 election.

Smith told reporters he would seek "a speedy trial" and urged members of the public to read the indictment.

“The attack in our nation’s capital on January 6, 2021, on the center of American democracy, was incited by lies,” Smith said in a brief statement. “Defendant’s lies are intended to obstruct the U.S. government’s function of collecting, counting and certifying the results of the presidential election.”

Trump 'exploited' January 6th attack

The indictment alleges that Trump and his co-conspirators "exploited" the attack on the US Capitol on January 6 as they continued to try to convince members of Congress to delay confirmation of the election results.

“As violence ensued, the defendant and accomplices took advantage of the disruption. They redoubled their efforts to file false allegations of electoral fraud and persuade members of Congress to further delay summing up based on these allegations,” the indictment says.

The indictment also alleges that Trump deceived many of the rioters into believing that then-Vice President Mike Pence could change the election results and make Trump the winner.

Trump denied all accusations.

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John Lauro, Trump's co-counsel in the January 6 case, said Trump was charged simply for "what he believed in and also for the political speech he made as president." Lauro criticized the accusations for being "a burp of the allegations in the January 6 report".

“Nothing has been done that is not permitted by the Constitution,” Lauro said.

The White House declined to comment.

Accomplices

The document included six accomplices who were not charged.

Among the six are four unnamed lawyers who allegedly assisted Trump in his attempt to disrupt the 2020 election. Also mentioned is one unnamed Justice Department official who "attempted to use the Department of Justice to open bogus election crime investigations and influence state legislatures with deliberately false allegations of electoral fraud."

The indictment also mentions an unnamed "political consultant who helped implement a plan to present false lists of presidential electors in order to obstruct the certification process."

Not only Trump faces punishment

The first count, conspiracy to defraud the United States, falls under the law, which can be used to prosecute a wide range of conspirators involving two or more people to violate US law.

The other two counts relate to obstruction of a formal trial. They are filed under the provisions included in the federal bystander tampering law. The law was also used to prosecute some of the rioters who had invaded the Capitol.

These items carry a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. The appropriateness of using the law to prosecute rioters was disputed in the Capitol attack cases.

Trump is also accused of conspiring against Reconstruction-era civil rights law. The law prohibits two or more persons from conspiring to "harm, harass, threaten or intimidate any person." It provides for a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison if the conspiracy does not result in death.

Smith's decision to file charges will show whether the criminal justice system can be used to hold Trump accountable for his post-election behavior. Trump was acquitted in an impeachment trial related to his actions that day.

Other charges

This is the 4th criminal charge brought against Trump. In the aggregate, punishments have already gathered for more than one life sentence, but this is not prevents Trump from running in the elections and even be president. Trump remains the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

Smith brings charges against Trump for the second time in two months. In June, Trump was presented with charge of possession of classified documents and conspiracy with a high-ranking aide in order to hide them from the government and his own lawyers. And in March, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg indicted Trump for falsification of business documents.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to both counts and will likely do so again when he stands trial on the latest charges.

Trump's March indictment marked the first time in U.S. history that a president has faced criminal charges. There are now three separate parallel cases in which the president faces criminal charges.

Conspiracy with false electors

The so-called phony electoral conspiracy was an unprecedented attempt to undermine the Electoral College process by replacing Biden's electors with illegitimate GOP electors.

Trump supporters in seven key states met on December 14, 2020 and signed fake protocols, falsely claiming that Trump actually won in their states and they were legitimate voters. They submitted these false documents to Congress and to the National Archives, expecting their false claims to be accepted at certification on January 6th.

It was part of an organized plan.

Senior Trump Campaign Officials Conspired with Fake Electors. They directly observed the mechanics in each state, linking the Trump campaign apparatus to what initially looked like a failed political stunt by local Trump supporters.

Federal investigators have subpoenaed fake voters across the country, sent FBI agents to interview witnesses, and recently granted immunity to two Nevada fake voters to testify before a grand jury.

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In Michigan, the state attorney general charged 16 fake voters who signed the protocols with multiple felonies. The minutes falsely claimed that Trump won Michigan in the 2020 election. Fulton County District Attorney Fanny Willis is expected to ask a grand jury this month to file charges related to Georgia's attempts to rig the election.

As ForumDaily wrote earlier:

• On January 6, 2021, the US Congress met in Washington, D.C. to approve the results of the presidential election. At the same time numerous supporters of the incumbent US President Donald Trump crowded under the Capitol building to protest against these results. The situation quickly escalated and turned into chaos.
• House of Representatives and Senate confirmed Joe Biden's win early Thursday morning January 7. During the protests near the Capitol, at least 4 people died, there were victims. The chaos near the Capitol was condemned by the leaders of many countries.
• US President Donald Trump returns to Twitter after 12 hours of blocking his account and posted a video in which he severely condemned the people who broke into the Capitol, and also admitted defeat for the first time in the elections.
• This assault resulted in Trump's second impeachment trial launched.
• 45th US President Donald Trump files lawsuit in D.C. court against the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Uprising and the National Archives to keep records made during his presidency secret, demanding executive privileges.

• On August 8, 2022, the FBI issued a warrant for search at the resort Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, as part of an investigation into the handling of presidential documents, including classified documents that may have been delivered there.
• FBI agents seized secret recordings from the home of the 45th US President Donald Trump in Mar-a-Lago, Florida during an unprecedented search. Some of them have been marked as top secret.
• In this case, the US Department of Justice is investigating, Did the 45th President of the United States Donald Trump violate several federal laws related to the handling of classified documents. But that's not all: several other departments also opened cases against the 45th president.
• In addition, the FBI released the agent's testimony, which became the reason for the search of Trump's estate.
• On June 9, the U.S. Department of Justice released an indictment against Trump for mishandling classified documents after he left office in the White House - he faces 400 years in prison.
• About who in the United States has access to top-secret documents and how unique are the papers that Trump took with him to Mar-a-Lago, read in our material.

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