WASHINGTON — Special counsel Jack Smith on Tuesday reindicted Donald Trump on four felony charges related to his effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
The 36-page indictment is an attempt by prosecutors to revise the original indictment amid the Supreme Court’s ruling last month that presidents should have immunity from prosecution for their official conduct.
“The superseding indictment, which was presented to a new grand jury that had not previously heard evidence in this case, reflects the Government’s efforts to respect and implement the Supreme Court’s holdings and remand instructions,” Smith’s team wrote.
Both sides faced a Friday deadline to provide next steps to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, the judge who is overseeing the proceedings in the trial court. There is a scheduled hearing for September 5 to set a course for the case.
Trump pleaded not guilty to the initial indictment and blasted Tuesday’s new indictment as “shocking” in a social media post on his Truth Social website.
“For them to do this immediately after our Supreme Court Victory on Immunity and more, is shocking,” Trump wrote.
“In an effort to resurrect a “dead” Witch Hunt in Washington, D.C., in an act of desperation, and in order to save face, the illegally appointed “Special Counsel” Deranged Jack Smith, has brought a ridiculous new Indictment against me, which has all the problems of the old Indictment, and should be dismissed IMMEDIATELY,” he added.
The new indictment has taken out key sections of what could be seen as Trump’s official acts as president. For example, Trump’s conversations with Justice Department officials where he allegedly asked them to support his false claims of election fraud are gone. Prosecutors also removed references to advice or conversations that Trump had with direct advisers in the Oval Office.
“These claims were unsupported, objectively unreasonable, and ever-changing, and the Defendant and his co-conspirators repeated them even after they were publicly disproven,” the indictment states. “These claims were false, and the Defendant knew that they were false.”
