By If at first you don’t succeed at trying to use lawfare to jail the leading candidate for president after he knocked out the sitting president, try try again. That’s what Jack Smith and Attorney General Merrick Garland appear to believe.
With less than 70 days before the upcoming presidential election and the Republican and Democrat virtually tied across the country, Joe Biden’s Department of Justice has once again indicted Donald Trump under the guise that he attempted to “subvert the 2020 presidential election.”
Politico reports that the 36-page indictment, secured Tuesday by special counsel Jack Smith, is an attempt by prosecutors to streamline the case against Trump to address the Supreme Court’s ruling last month that concluded presidents enjoy sweeping immunity from prosecution for their official conduct.
The new indictment removes some specific allegations against Trump but contains the same four criminal charges, including conspiracy to defraud the United States. It’s a signal that Smith believes the high court’s immunity decision doesn’t pose a major impediment to convicting the former president.
“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 in an accompanying court filing.
Both sides face a Friday deadline to propose next steps to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, the Biden appointee who is overseeing the proceedings in the trial court. Chutkan has scheduled a Sept. 5 hearing to set a course for the case.
Democrats claim—along with using social media to censor their opponents, trying to kick off the ballot third party-candidates who could take votes away from Kamala Harris, and campaigning to pack the Supreme Court and ending the filibuster—that indicting the former president and potentially jailing him for the rest of the election is simply “defending democracy.”
Donald Trump has consistently denied the charges from his initial indictment, characterizing the legal actions against him as politically motivated. His representatives did not immediately provide a comment regarding the new developments.
The latest legal filing attempts to revive a case that had been dormant for months while the Supreme Court reviewed Trump’s claims of presidential immunity. In a significant decision on July 1, the Supreme Court, by a 6-3 vote, established a broad interpretation of presidential immunity. This ruling clarified that some of the special counsel’s charges could not move forward, leaving other parts of the case uncertain.
The new indictment leverages a key distinction drawn by the Supreme Court between a president’s private actions, which can lead to criminal charges, and actions related to official duties, which are now largely protected by immunity.
To distance Trump’s actions from his official presidential responsibilities, the indictment highlights the political and personal aspects of his conduct during the post-election period and the events of January 6, 2021. For example, it points out that Mike Pence, whom Trump pressured to block the certification of election results, was not just the vice president but also Trump’s running mate. It also notes that Trump’s January 6 rally was privately organized and funded, and that he frequently used his Twitter account for personal purposes.
Additionally, the new document omits several high-ranking government officials who had previously informed Trump that his claims of election fraud were unfounded, including leaders from the intelligence community, the Justice Department, and the White House legal team.
Trump, on his social media website Truth Social, reacted to the new indictment in a lengthy statement:
“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. His Florida Document Hoax Case has been completely dismissed. This is merely an attempt to INTERFERE WITH THE ELECTION, and distract the American People from the catastrophes Kamala Harris has inflicted on our Nation, like the Border Invasion, Migrant Crime, Rampant Inflation, the threat of World War III, and more….
This travesty is now on Comrade Kamala Harris, who is actively pushing it, rather than immediately calling for its dismissal, as should be done. This is for Third World Countries and Banana Republics, not for the U.S.A.! As Jack Smith knows, the whole case should be thrown out and dismissed on Presidential Immunity grounds, as already ruled unequivocally by the U.S. Supreme Court. Smith rewrote the exact same case in an effort to circumvent the Supreme Court Decision. The people of our Country will see what is happening with all of these corrupt lawsuits against me, and will REJECT them by giving me an overwhelming Victory on November 5th for President of the United States….
….For them to do this immediately after our Supreme Court Victory on Immunity and more, is shocking. I’ve also been informed by my attorneys, that you’re not even allowed to bring cases literally right before an Election – A direct assault on Democracy! This is an unprecedented abuse of the Criminal Justice System. The case has to do with “Conspiracy to Obstruct the 2020 Presidential Election,” when they are the ones that did the obstructing of the Election, not me. They cheated on the Election, and they go after me for “cheating on the Election.” Interestingly, this comes at the exact same time as Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook has admitted to concealing massive amounts of information, such as Hunter Biden’s Laptop from Hell, which is a direct acknowledgment that the 2020 Presidential Election was MANIPULATED and RIGGED by the DOJ. What they are doing now is the single greatest sabotage of our Democracy in History….
….No Presidential Candidate, or Candidate for any Office, has ever had to put up with all of this Lawfare and Weaponization directly out of the Office of a Political Opponent. They’ve Weaponized local D.A.s and Attorney Generals, and anybody else that will listen, to Interfere with the upcoming 2024 Presidential Election – Never been done before. This is now Kamala’s Weaponized System against her Political Opponent. All of these Scams will fail, just as Deranged Jack’s Hoax in Florida has been fully dismissed, and we will win the Most Important Election in the History of our Country on November 5th. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
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