Special prosecutor revises indictment

In the indictment against former US President Donald Trump for unlawfully attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election, every detail matters. Jack Smith, the special counsel who is investigating this sensitive case, released a revised indictment on Tuesday, August 27.

The new document, which contains the same four charges as the previous one issued on 1^er August 2023, “reflects the prosecution’s willingness to respect and implement the findings and instructions of the Supreme Court”explains in a press release the spokesman for the special prosecutor, Peter Carr.

Donald Trump therefore remains charged with “conspiracy against American institutions” and of“violation of the right to vote” voters for pressuring local officials in several key states to overturn the official results of the election won by Democrat Joe Biden. But Smith had to amend the indictment to comply with the unprecedented ruling issued on March 1^er July by the Supreme Court in which it recognizes the President of the United States broad criminal immunity.

By a majority of six to three – conservative justices against progressives – the country’s highest court ruled that “The President has no immunity for his unofficial acts” but that he “is entitled to at least a presumption of immunity for his official acts”. And the Supreme Court has notably held that the exchanges of a president, during his mandate, with the Ministry of Justice constitute official acts for which he is therefore entitled to immunity.

An “act of desperation,” reacts Donald Trump

The court thus sent the case back to trial judge Tanya Chutkan to determine which acts are potentially immune from criminal prosecution. The burden is on the prosecution to demonstrate that they are not when they were committed in the exercise of its functions.

As a result, prosecutors have removed from the indictment a series of conversations or communications at the time of the events between Donald Trump and executive branch officials, particularly the Justice Department. “six conspirators” appearing in the original indictment, mainly lawyers involved in his alleged machinations, who were not identified by name, “Number 4”, a Justice Department official, has simply disappeared from the new version. As for the other five, “none of them were government officials at the time of the plot and all were acting in their private capacities”prosecutors point out.

But the new document still includes the charge that Donald Trump participated in a scheme to enlist fraudulent voter registration slates to gain control of key states officially won by his Democratic rival Joe Biden. The report also retains the charge that Mr. Trump sought to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to reject the election result, or that Mr. Trump and his allies exploited the chaos at the Capitol on January 6 to try to further delay the certification of Mr. Biden’s victory.

Donald Trump reacted, in a series of messages on his Truth Social network, by once again crying out against the instrumentalization of justice by the outgoing Democratic administration, and by accusing the special prosecutor of “trying to resurrect a ‘dead’ witch hunt in an act of desperation”. Jack “Smith rewrote the exact same case in an attempt to circumvent the Supreme Court’s decision.”he adds.

Proceed to trial as late as possible

The trial in this case, originally scheduled for March 4 in Washington, was already postponed until the Supreme Court rules on the criminal immunity claimed by Donald Trump as a former president. Targeted by four criminal proceedings, the Republican presidential candidate is doing everything he can to go to trial as late as possible, in any case after the November 5 election.

Donald Trump was found guilty on May 30 in New York of “aggravated false accounting to conceal a conspiracy to pervert the 2016 election”in the case of the payment of $130,000, disguised as legal fees, to buy the silence of the pornographic actress Stormy Daniels. But this first criminal conviction, unprecedented for a former American president, will in all likelihood be the only one before the vote and the pronouncement of the sentence, scheduled for September, could also be postponed because of the decision of the Supreme Court.

If re-elected, Donald Trump could, once inaugurated in January 2025, order a halt to federal prosecutions against him.