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US prosecutors have filed a revised set of charges against Donald Trump over his alleged attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, in an attempt to comply with the Supreme Court decision that recognised broad immunity from criminal prosecution for presidents.
The superseding indictment, filed by special counsel Jack Smith in Washington federal court on Tuesday, comes weeks after the high court ruled that the case would have to be examined by a federal judge to determine what elements were “official acts” for which Trump could not be charged.
It contains the same four core charges for which Smith charged the former president last year in connection with the aftermath of the 2020 election and the lead-up to the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol by a mob of his supporters.
However, the indictment no longer includes certain allegations that Trump instructed his Department of Justice to declare the election results corrupt, or his conversations with DoJ official Jeffrey Clark, whom Trump tried to make attorney-general.
The case was “presented to a new grand jury that had not previously heard evidence in this case”, and “reflects the government’s efforts to respect and implement the Supreme Court’s holdings”, Smith wrote to the court on Tuesday.
Smith, who was appointed to oversee DoJ probes of Trump, has faced a series of setbacks in his attempts to prosecute two criminal cases against the former president before November’s election, in which Trump is the Republican party candidate.
Trump’s team had asked the Supreme Court to find that he was shielded from prosecution for his acts while president. In July, the US high court’s conservative majority ruled that “certain allegations — such as those involving Trump’s discussions with the acting attorney-general — are readily categorised in light of the nature of the president’s official relationship to the office held by that individual” and should be stripped from the indictment.
The Supreme Court urged Tanya Chutkan, the judge overseeing the case, to parse the indictment and ban the inclusion of “official acts” before any trial could proceed, hinting that they expected the process not to be rushed.
Smith’s team is also attempting to resurrect another federal criminal case against Trump, over the alleged retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate. The judge overseeing that case, Aileen Cannon, summarily dismissed the charges after agreeing with Trump’s lawyers that the appointment of Smith without the explicit approval of Congress was unconstitutional.
Only one of the four criminal indictments filed against Trump last year has gone to trial — a case brought by the Manhattan district attorney over whether he had falsified business records to conceal payments to porn actor Stormy Daniels in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election.
Trump is due to be sentenced in that case in September. However, it may be further postponed as the judge decides whether the Supreme Court’s ruling affects the verdict.
Last week, Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg did not oppose the defence’s request for a delay while they challenged prosecutors’ introduction of alleged “official acts” at trial.
If the delay is successful, Trump could face no further criminal proceedings before November’s election. He is narrowly trailing Democratic vice-president Kamala Harris in polls tracking the race.
Separately, a New York appeals court is set to hear arguments next month over whether Trump is liable to pay more than $450mn after being found liable for fraud in a civil trial brought by the state’s attorney-general.
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