It has taken more days than expected, but finally this Tuesday Donald Trump has been accused of having allegedly tried to reverse the result of the 2020 elections, in which he lost to Joe Biden. Special counsel Jack Smith has filed four charges against the former US president. It is the third accusation in four months against the politician and businessman.
The country has reached an unprecedented situation, not only because Trump was president of the country, that is, its first authority, but because he intends to be so again. He is, by far, the favorite for the Republican Party nomination and the polls place him tied with President Biden in a hypothetical repeat of the 2020 electoral duel.
This new accusation against the Republican politician takes the form of a 45-page document entitled The United States of America against Donald J.. Trump. So much is its importance, that this Tuesday it became in a few hours one of the most consulted documents in American history.
It is the third accusation in four months against the former president of the United States
And it is that, for the first time, the US is preparing to put a former president on trial and also for trying to boycott its democratic system. The special counsel alleges that Trump violated several laws in his attempt to overturn the 2020 election because he “was determined to stay in power” after losing the election.
So serious, unique and momentous that CNN analyst Stephen Collinson describes it this way: “The indictment details an alleged clear and chilling plot to subvert the will of voters and cut the chain of voluntary transfers of power between presidents inaugurated by George Washington leaving his nation “to command its own fortunes” when he declined a new term in 1796″.
The keys of the accusation
Reading the 45-page indictment of Jack Smith is summarized in these key points, which are the reasons for charging him.
1. A conspiracy of at least two months
Far from focusing on a single incident, such as the capture of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, the special counsel focuses on all of Trump's actions during the two months after the elections.. “Despite having lost, the defendant was determined to remain in power,” reads the first page of the charging document.
The defendant spread lies that there had been decisive fraud in the elections and that he had actually won.”
“So for more than two months after Election Day on November 3, 2020, the defendant spread lies that there had been determined fraud in the election and that he had actually won,” the prosecutors' text says.. They accuse him of harming not only the Government and Congress, but also American citizens.
According to them, there was a criminal conspiracy that violated various elements of section 18 of the United States Code.. All this would have been in three movements:
- A conspiracy to defraud the country by using fraud and deception to impair, obstruct, and nullify the way the government collects, counts, and certifies the results of the presidential elections.
- Another to obstruct and corruptly prevent the certification of the electoral college results by Congress on January 6th.
- And a third conspiracy against the right to vote and the counting of votes, which falls within the statute of conspiracy against rights.
2. Trump knew he was lying
The lie was the basis of the former president's conspiracy to stay in power. Prosecutors say Trump lied, but also knew he was doing it. “The claims were false and the defendant knew they were false,” the document says.
The claims were false and the defendant knew they were false.”
It continues: “The defendant repeated [the lies] and disseminated them widely anyway, to make his knowingly false claims appear legitimate, to create an intense national atmosphere of mistrust and anger, and to erode public faith in the administration of the elections”.
Smith and his team accuse the former president of lying and echoing false claims of voter fraud for months, despite being repeatedly told they were not true.. Telling him, that is, giving Trump “sincere advice”, took care of many “whom he trusted” and who were part of his circle of trust. They would be at least:
- Vice President Mike Pence, who told Trump that he had seen no evidence of voter fraud that would have skewed the result.
- White House lawyers appointed by Trump, who told him “that his presidency would end on Inauguration Day in 2021.”
- Senior Justice Department officials appointed by Trump, who assured him on “multiple occasions” that his fraud allegations were unsubstantiated.
3. There were six other conspirators
Smith's indictment points to six anonymous conspirators who allegedly helped Trump carry out his plan to illegally overturn the election results.. The document does not give their names.. It describes four of them as lawyers working for the Trump campaign, one as a political consultant and one as a Justice Department official.
According to prosecutors, all of these individuals pressured officials in contested election states to ignore the popular vote, disenfranchise millions of voters, and substitute fake voters for legitimate voters.
They are also accused of trying to use the power of the “Ministry” of Justice to carry out bogus investigations into alleged fraud and of pressuring then-Vice President Mike Pence to fraudulently rig the election result.
These six people have not been charged in this process. For sure, the reasons are not yet known, but they could be cooperating with prosecutors. In any case, it has been included in the accusation document to support the thesis of a conspiracy.. As Aziz Huq of the University of Chicago Law School told the BBC, “You can't conspire with one person, you have to conspire with others.”
4. legitimate false voters
The indictment alleges that Trump and his associates effectively misled individuals in seven states into creating and submitting certificates claiming they were legitimate voters.. The goal, prosecutors say, was to create a “false controversy” in the certification procedure in those states on December 14, 2020, and “position the vice president (presiding on January 6 as president of the Senate) to impersonate voters.” legitimate” by Trump's fake ones.
The charging document indicates that, beginning in early December 2020, Trump and the other conspirators undertook a change of strategy after they failed to convince state officials not to certify the correct result.. When describing the plot, it is said that they filed lawsuits in the states where the false voters were being organized as a pretext to justify the assembly of alternative lists.
5. They 'exploded' the attack on the Capitol
The indictment alleges that Trump and his accomplices “exploited” the “violence” and “chaos” of the attack on the Capitol, continuing their efforts to convince members of Congress to delay certifying the election that day, while rejecting petitions. to order the rioters to leave.
The prosecutors' document refers to a phone call the night of the riots in which Trump refused a request by his then White House adviser, Pat Cipollone, to withdraw his objections and allow congressional certification of the results of the riots. 2020 elections.
It also describes the phone calls that Rudolph Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer, made to members of Congress that night.. In a voicemail he left with an unnamed US senator, Giuliani asked him to “go against all the states and spread it out a bit like a filibuster,” according to a voicemail line cited in the indictment.
Additionally, Smith's indictment alleges that Trump repeatedly refused to order rioters to leave the Capitol.
Freedom of expression?
The Achilles heel of the prosecution could be freedom of expression. The First Amendment to the US Constitution recognizes as sacred the right of any citizen to express their opinions. That being the case, the special prosecutor prefers to start by acknowledging it.
Like any American, Trump had the right to challenge the results of the elections and even to claim that he lost due to alleged voter fraud, even if it was a lie.. Smith acknowledges this in the indictment, but for that reason insists that they were more than opinions; that they were a key component of a conspiracy to overturn the election result.
“Defendant's knowingly false statements were an integral part of his criminal plans to defeat the function of the federal government, obstruct certification, and interfere with the right of others to vote and to have their votes counted,” the charging document read. .