Special Counsel Jack Smith announced Tuesday evening that a grand jury in Washington, D.C., had indicted former President Donald Trump on charges relating to the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
The indictment was announced the day after President Joe Biden had been implicated in a long-running influence peddling-scheme by his son Hunter’s former business partner, Devon Archer, in testimony before the House Oversight Committee.
Trump was indicted on four counts: one on conspiracy to defraud the U.S.; one on conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; one of obstruction and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and one of conspiracy against rights.
The indictment declares:
Despite having lost, the Defendant was determined to stay in power. So for more than two months following Election Day on November 3, 2020, the Defendant spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election that he actually won. These claims were false, and the Defendant knew they were false.
The indictment does not indicate how prosecutors were able to establish what Trump himself believed, other than the fact that he had been informed by others that his suspicions of fraud were false; nor does it distinguish the case from the “Russia collusion” hoax spread by Trump’s opponents, including within the Department of Justice, after he won the 2016 presidential election.
There are several unnamed, unindicted co-conspirators in the indictment as well. These are four attorneys, a Department of Justice official, and a political consultant who worked on Trump’s strategy to challenge the result.
The former president shared the news on his own social media platform, Truth Social, that he expected to be indicted, and claimed that federal prosecutors had delayed doing so for more than two years to keep him out of the presidential race.
— Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 (@julie_kelly2) August 1, 2023
Though the indictment was sealed, President Trump’s campaign acknowledged it, and released a statement to the media:
This is nothing more than the latest corrupt chapter in the continued pathetic attempt by the Biden Crime Family and their weaponized Department of Justice to interfere with the 2024 Presidential Election, in which President Trump is the undisputed frontrunner, and leading by substantial margins.
But why did they wait two and a half years to bring these fake charges, right in the middle of President Trump’s winning campaign for 2024? Why was it announced the day after the big Crooked Joe Biden scandal broke out from the Halls of Congress?
The answer is, election interference! The lawlessness of these persecutions of President Trump and his supporters is reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930s, the former Soviet Union, and other authoritarian, dictatorial regimes. President Trump has always followed the law and the Constitution, with advice from many highly accomplished attorneys.
These un-American witch hunts will fail and President Trump will be re-elected to the White House so he can save our Country from the abuse, incompetence, and corruption that is running through the veins of our Country at levels never seen before.
Three years ago we had strong borders, energy independence, no inflation, and a great economy. Today, we are a nation in decline. President Trump will not be deterred by disgraceful and unprecedented political targeting!
Trump has now been indicted three times: first, in Manhattan, in April, on state charges relating to payments to porn star Stormy Daniels; second, in Miami, in June, on federal charges relating to White House documents; and third, in Washington, on Jan. 6.
The judge in the latest indictment will be Tanya S. Chutkan, an appointee of President Barack Obama.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
