The special counsel investigating Donald Trump in the Capitol assault case presented a new indictment against the former US president on Tuesday that narrows the allegations in an effort to comply with the Supreme Court’s ruling on immunity for his actions as an agent.
Last July, the nation’s highest court granted Trump partial immunity, making it difficult to try him for the Capitol assault. So prosecutors re-filed the case and re-indicted the former president in an attempt to salvage the case.
The former Republican president, who is now seeking a new term in the White House, has rejected the new accusation against him. Trump posted a message on his Truth Social network in which he called the special prosecutor in charge of the case, Jack Smith, “deranged” and accused him of bringing a “ridiculous” accusation against him “in order to resurrect a witch hunt” in Washington DC, in an act of desperation and to save face.
Smith maintained the four counts against him in the new indictment, including conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, but limited some allegations about his plans to subvert the election results.
According to statements from the special prosecutor’s office cited by CNN, this new indictment, presented before a new grand jury that had not previously heard evidence, reflects the government’s efforts to respect and implement the Supreme Court’s resolution.
The Court had concluded by a vote of six to three, those of the progressive justices, that “a former president is entitled to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for acts within his constitutional authority,” but established that “there is no immunity for unofficial acts.”
Full immunity during the Republican White House term (2017-2021) would have ended the prosecution of him in Washington DC, but this more ambiguous decision forced lower courts to determine more precisely which acts could be considered official and which were not.
The original 45-page indictment was reduced to 36 pages, eliminating a series of allegations that a majority of conservative Supreme Court justices said were wrongly presented. According to The Washington Post, these are allegations related to Trump’s efforts to get the Justice Department to support his claim that there was voter fraud in the 2020 election, won by Democrat Joe Biden.
Furthermore, instead of six co-conspirators, only five now appear. According to the Washington Post, a person identified by sources close to the case as Jeffrey Clark, a former agent of the said department, is no longer there.
In its July decision, the Supreme Court noted that Trump could not face charges related to his interactions with members of the Justice Department, considering that his interaction with that office was part of the duties of his office.
The New York Times reported that the new charge comes just days before the prosecutor’s office and Trump’s lawyers plan to present their respective proposals to the judge in charge of the case on how to assess the impact of the Supreme Court’s decision.
At the time, Trump, who was running for re-election in the November 5 election, called the decision by the highest court a “victory for democracy,” while President Biden said it set a “dangerous precedent” by determining, in his opinion, that any president “can feel free to ignore the law” without suffering consequences.
