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      How Washington DC reacted to Trump’s latest indictment – video report

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      Democrats and some Republican opponents welcomed Donald Trump’s federal indictment on four charges relating to his alleged attempted election subversion, while the former president’s supporters rallied to his defence. Trump is now facing 78 criminal charges, including 40 federal counts in Florida over his retention of classified records, and 34 New York state counts over hush-money payments to the porn actor Stormy Daniels. Despite this, and the prospect of more charges over election subversion in Georgia, he is leading national Republican polling by more than 30 points and by wide margins in early voting states More

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      Donald Trump to appear in court over attempt to overturn 2020 US election

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      Donald Trump is due to appear in court on Thursday after federal prosecutors indicted the ex-president for attempting to overturn the 2020 election, as Democrats and progressives welcomed the charges but many Republicans rallied behind him.Prosecutors will outline the four conspiracy and obstruction counts Trump faces and a judge will set bail conditions in the latest criminal case before the former president, weeks after he was charged with retaining national defence information.The judge will also set out a schedule for pretrial motions and discovery. Both sides are likely later to file motions seeking to shape what evidence and legal arguments will be permitted at the eventual trial, which could be many months away.Many Republicans – elected officials and voters – have unashamedly backed Trump, seeking to portray the charges against him as a selective and politically motivated prosecution and a Democratic plot to derail his 2024 re-election bid.That pattern largely held after Wednesday’s indictment, which was brought by the special counsel Jack Smith and filed in federal district court in Washington, with most Republicans pivoting to criticise Trump’s successor, Joe Biden.The House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, called the indictment an attempt “to distract from news” about Republican allegations of corruption involving Hunter Biden, the president’s son, “and attack the frontrunner” to face Biden next year.The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, Trump’s leading rival for the Republican nomination, said he had yet to read the indictment, but he vowed to “end the weaponisation of the federal government”, suggesting the case was being used to target a political enemy.DeSantis did not mention Trump by name but promised that if he was elected president he would “ensure a single standard of justice for all Americans”, adding: “One of the reasons our country is in decline is the politicisation of the rule of law.”The latest charges means the former president has been impeached twice, arrested twice and indicted three times: over attempted election subversion, hush-money payments to a porn actor, and the alleged mishandling of classified documents.Despite the charges – and the prospect of more to come, over alleged election subversion in Georgia – he leads national Republican polling by more than 30 points. Nothing prevents criminal defendants from campaigning or taking office if they are convicted.Strategists said that while the indictments could help Trump solidify support with his base and win the Republican nomination, they could prove less helpful in next year’s election, when he will have to win over more sceptical moderates and independents.Republican condemnation of the former president was rare. Will Hurd, a former Texas congressman, said Trump’s presidential bid was “driven by an attempt to stay out of prison and scam his supporters into footing his legal bills”.Hurd added: “Furthermore, his denial of the 2020 election results and actions on 6 January show he’s unfit for office.” If Republicans “make the upcoming election about Trump, we are giving Joe Biden another four years in the White House”, he said.Mike Pence, Trump’s former vice-president, who refused to bow to pressure not to certify the election results, said the latest indictment was “an important reminder anyone who puts himself over the constitution should never be president of the United States”, adding that Trump’s candidacy meant “more distractions”.Most, however, implicitly backed the former president, although often without naming him. The South Carolina senator Tim Scott claimed that “Biden’s justice department” was “hunting Republicans, while protecting Democrats”.Byron Donalds of Florida, a hard-right Trump ally, said Trump was the victim of “selective use of … the federal government” while prosecutors “concoct sweetheart deals for Hunter [Biden], Hillary [Clinton] and the rest of the Democrat darlings”.Democrat and progressive reactions to the indictment reflected the deep divide in US politics. Nancy Pelosi, a former House speaker who oversaw two Trump impeachments, said the charges outlined “a sinister plot”.The House Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, and the Democratic Senate leader, Chuck Schumer, said Trump’s third indictment “illustrates in shocking detail … a months-long criminal plot led by the former president to defy democracy and overturn the will of the American people”.Noah Bookbinder, the president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, called the latest charges “the most significant [Trump] has yet faced because they address the most serious offense he committed: trying to block the peaceful transfer of power and keep himself in office”.Michael Waldman of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s School of Law said the magnitude of the indictment “matches the magnitude of what Trump tried to do, which is to overthrow the constitutional system to stay in office”.Meagan Hatcher-Mays, of the campaigning group Indivisible, highlighted why Republicans still backed Trump, whom polls put level with Biden if the pair face each other again in 2024.“Republicans only care about their power,” she said, “and they will stop at nothing to stay in it. Trump is … just the loud, obnoxious tip of the iceberg.” More

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      Donald Trump charged over attempts to stay in power despite losing 2020 US election – live

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      From 29m agoDonald Trump has been indicted with several crimes in connection with his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in a frenzied attempt to stay in power.The indictment, filed in federal district court in Washington, charges Trump with one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States, one count of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.In short (and avoiding legalese) the charges relate to Trump’s alleged effort to deny the American people their democratic right to choose their own leader.Hello readers! Oliver Holmes here, and I’ll be kicking off today’s US live blog.There are now a dizzying number of legal cases swirling around the Republican leader, but I promise to try to keep it as simple and straightforward as possible.The stakes are high. Tuesday’s indictment marks the first time a US president has faced criminal charges for trying to overturn an election. And next year, Americans will vote in an election where Trump looks set to be the Republican candidate.Stay with us…The case against Trump was announced last night by special counsel Jack Smith. He is a federal prosecutor – a government lawyer who is tasked with prosecuting criminal cases.When announcing the charges, Smith encourages everyone to read in full the 45-page indictment. The document is written in quite a straightforward, readable way, and it packs a punch, calling Trump a liar.You can read it in full here, but here are parts of the introduction:“The Defendant [Trump] lost the 2020 presidential election. Despite having lost, the Defendant was determined to remain in power. So for more than two months following election day … the Defendant spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won. These claims were false, and the Defendant knew that they were false.”(Note: “outcome-determinative” means that the alleged election fraud was so big that it would have changed the outcome of the election ie mean Trump had won)Donald Trump has been indicted with several crimes in connection with his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in a frenzied attempt to stay in power.The indictment, filed in federal district court in Washington, charges Trump with one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States, one count of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.In short (and avoiding legalese) the charges relate to Trump’s alleged effort to deny the American people their democratic right to choose their own leader.Hello readers! Oliver Holmes here, and I’ll be kicking off today’s US live blog.There are now a dizzying number of legal cases swirling around the Republican leader, but I promise to try to keep it as simple and straightforward as possible.The stakes are high. Tuesday’s indictment marks the first time a US president has faced criminal charges for trying to overturn an election. And next year, Americans will vote in an election where Trump looks set to be the Republican candidate.Stay with us… More

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      Donald Trump charged over efforts to overturn 2020 presidential election

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      Federal prosecutors have charged Donald Trump over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, the latest criminal case before the former president that comes just weeks after he was charged with retaining national defense information.The latest charges compound the mounting legal peril for Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican nomination, after he was indicted earlier this year in Miami for illegally retaining classified documents, and in New York for paying hush money to an adult film star before the 2016 election.Trump is also expected to face state charges in Georgia over Trump’s efforts there to reverse his defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 election. The Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, has signalled her intent to file multiple indictments around the first two weeks of August.More details soon … More

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      Fulton county prosecutors prepare racketeering charges in Trump inquiry

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      The Fulton county district attorney investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state of Georgia has developed sufficient evidence to charge a sprawling racketeering indictment next month, according to two people briefed on the matter.The racketeering statute in Georgia requires prosecutors to show the existence of an “enterprise” – and a pattern of racketeering activity that is predicated on at least two “qualifying” crimes.In the Trump investigation, the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, has amassed enough evidence to pursue a racketeering indictment predicated on statutes related to influencing witnesses and computer trespass, the people said.Willis had previously said she was weighing racketeering charges in her criminal investigation, but the new details about the direction and scope of the case come as prosecutors are expected to seek indictments starting in the first two weeks of August.The racketeering statute in Georgia is more expansive than its federal counterpart, notably because any attempts to solicit or coerce the qualifying crimes can be included as predicate acts of racketeering activity, even when those crimes cannot be indicted separately.The specific evidence was not clear, though the charge regarding influencing witnesses could include Trump’s conversations with Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, in which he asked Raffensperger to “find” 11,780 votes, the people said – and thereby implicate Trump.For the computer trespass charge, where prosecutors would have to show that defendants used a computer or network without authority to interfere with a program or data, that would include the breach of voting machines in Coffee county, the two people said.The breach of voting machines involved a group of Trump operatives – paid by the then Trump lawyer Sidney Powell – accessing the voting machines at the county’s election office and copying sensitive voting system data.The copied data from the Dominion Voting System machines, which is used statewide in Georgia, was then uploaded to a password-protected site from where election deniers could download the materials as part of a misguided effort to prove the 2020 election had been rigged.Though Coffee county is outside the jurisdiction of the Fulton county district attorney’s office, folding a potential computer trespass charge into a wider racketeering case would allow prosecutors to also seek an indictment for what the Trump operatives did there, the people said.A spokesperson for Willis did not respond to requests for comment.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe district attorney’s office has spent more than two years investigating whether Trump and his allies interfered in the 2020 election in Georgia, while prosecutors at the federal level are scrutinizing Trump’s efforts to reverse his defeat that culminated in the January 6 Capitol attack.A special grand jury in Atlanta that heard evidence for roughly seven months recommended charges for more than a dozen people, including the former president himself, its forewoman strongly suggested in interviews, though Willis will have to seek indictments from a regular grand jury.The grand jury that could decide whether to return an indictment against Trump was seated on 11 July. The selection process was attended by Willis and two prosecutors known to be on the Trump investigation: her deputy district attorney, Will Wooten, and special prosecutor Nathan Wade.Charges stemming from the Trump investigation are expected to come between the final week of July and the first two weeks of August, the Guardian has previously reported, after Willis told her team to shift to remote work during that period because of security concerns.The district attorney originally suggested charging decisions were “imminent” in January, but the timetable has been repeatedly delayed after a number of Republicans who acted as fake electors accepted immunity deals as the investigation neared its end. More

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      Donald Trump faces midnight deadline to decide whether to face grand jury

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      Donald Trump faced a deadline of midnight on Thursday to say if he would appear before a Washington grand jury convened by the special counsel Jack Smith to consider federal charges over his election subversion and incitement of the attack on Congress on 6 January 2021.Late on Wednesday, citing two people familiar with the matter, the Guardian reported that prosecutors had assembled evidence to charge Trump with three crimes.They were: obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and an unusual statute that makes it unlawful to conspire to violate civil rights.Obstruction of an official proceeding is punishable by up to 20 years in prison. Conspiracy to defraud the United States carries a maximum five-year sentence. The civil rights charge is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.By Thursday afternoon, all indications were that Trump would not agree to testify.Indictments regarding Trump’s attempted election subversion are expected soon – not only at the federal level but also in Fulton county, Georgia, where a grand jury to consider charges was recently formed. Elsewhere, this week brought charges against 16 people in a “false electors” scheme in Michigan, another battleground state.On Thursday morning, meanwhile, Politico reported that Trump had extracted a promise from the Republican speaker of the US House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, to hold votes on expunging Trump’s two impeachments.Trump was impeached first for withholding military aid in an attempt to extract political dirt from Ukraine, then for inciting the Capitol attack. In both cases, Senate Republicans ensured his acquittal at trial.Trump reportedly got the promise of an expungement vote, which Politico said McCarthy “made reflexively to save his own skin”, after the speaker provoked outrage from Trump allies by declining to endorse the former president in the Republican presidential primary for the 2024 election, citing an obligation to remain neutral.An expungement vote would be purely symbolic. It also would not be guaranteed to succeed. Republicans control the House by a very slim majority. Two sitting GOP congressmen, David Valadao of California and Dan Newhouse of Washington state, voted to impeach Trump over the Capitol riot. Republicans in swing districts, particularly in heavily Democratic north-eastern states, already face uphill fights to keep their seats.Speaking to reporters on Thursday, McCarthy denied making a promise, saying “There’s no deal” with Trump, but added: “I’ve been very clear from long before – when I voted against impeachments – that [Democrats] put them in for purely political purposes. I support expungement but there’s no deal out there.”In polling averages for the Republican primary, Trump leads by about 30 points. He has maintained that lead even while facing 34 criminal charges in New York, over hush-money payments to the porn star Stormy Daniels; 37 federal charges over his retention of classified documents; the prospect of state and federal indictments over his election subversion; a $5m fine after being held liable for sexual abuse and defamation against the writer E Jean Carroll; and ongoing investigations of his business affairs.Denying all wrongdoing, Trump has pleaded not guilty to all criminal charges.Nonetheless, polling regarding a notional general election shows him in a close race with Joe Biden. Earlier this week, Miles Taylor, who was a US homeland security official when in 2018 he wrote a famous anonymous New York Times column warning of Trump’s unfitness for office, told the Guardian Trump could yet return to the White House.“There’s been a number of polls that show the ex-president beating Joe Biden by several points,” Taylor said. “It would be hubris to say, ‘Oh, no, we would beat him again a second time.’ Actually, I don’t think that. If the election was held today, I think Donald Trump would defeat Joe Biden, and that really concerns me.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTaylor also pointed to the supine nature of the Republican party, saying McCarthy, the House speaker, “thought Trump was a buffoon and a danger and I’m sure Kevin still thinks that privately” but is unwilling, or unable, to move in any way against him.Taylor said: “Those people publicly, because they’re afraid, are still supporting the man. That collective anonymity is putting us in pretty seriously great danger.”Trump revealed on Tuesday that Smith had told him he faced potential charges. According to the New York Times, since then Trump has consulted with Washington allies including McCarthy and the New Yorker Elise Stefanik, chair of the Republican House conference and a staunch supporter who many observers think is eyeing selection as Trump’s running mate next year.Trump’s closest challenger for the Republican nomination, Ron DeSantis, this week mildly criticised Trump for his inaction on 6 January 2021, as the Capitol was attacked, but also said charges against the former president over his election subversion would not “be good for the country”.Court dates are set to clash with the Republican primary calendar. Trump faces three civil trials in New York, one to begin in October and two in January.In the criminal cases, Smith, the special counsel, has asked for trial over the classified documents charges to begin later this year. In the hush-money case, the trial is scheduled for March – in the thick of the Republican primary. Lawyers for Trump are attempting to delay both trials until after the general election next year, when Trump or another Republican president could order all cases dropped.On Thursday, Benjamin Ginsberg, a Republican elections lawyer, told the Washington Post the US was “in as precarious a situation as we’ve ever been”.“I don’t know what the chances are of things really going off the rails,” Ginsberg said, “but no question that there is a toxic mix unprecedented in the American experiment.” More

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      Trump under investigation for civil rights conspiracy in January 6 inquiry

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      Federal prosecutors investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results have evidence to charge the former president with three crimes, including section 241 of the US legal code that makes it unlawful to conspire to violate civil rights, two people familiar with the matter said.The potential charges detailed in a target letter sent to Trump by prosecutors from the office of special counsel Jack Smith, who also charged Trump with retaining classified documents last month, was the clearest signal of an imminent indictment.Prosecutors appear to have evidence to charge Trump with obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the United States based on the target letter, two statutes that the House select committee examining the January 6 Capitol attack issued criminal referrals for last year.The target letter to Trump identified a previously unconsidered third charge, the sources said. That is section 241 of title 18 of the US code, which makes it unlawful to conspire to threaten or intimidate a person in the “free exercise” of any right or privilege under the “Constitution or laws of the United States”.The statute, enacted to protect the civil rights of Black voters targeted by white supremacy groups after the US civil war, is unusual because it is typically used by prosecutors in law enforcement misconduct and hate crime prosecutions, though its use has expanded in recent years.What the potential charges means for Trump is unclear.Prosecutors have been examining various instances of Trump pressuring officials like his former vice-president Mike Pence, but Trump’s efforts to obstruct the transfer of power could also be construed as conspiring to defraud voters more generally.The other two statutes, meanwhile, suggest a core part of the case against Trump is focused on the so-called fake electors scheme and the former president’s efforts to use the fake slates in a conspiracy to stop the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s election win on 6 January 2021.The target letter did not cite any seditious conspiracy, incitement of insurrection or deprivation of rights under color of law – other areas for which legal experts have suggested Trump could have legal risk.A spokesperson for the Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment about the contents of the target letter, though a senior adviser to Trump did not dispute that section 241 was listed when reached late on Tuesday night.The New York Times also reported the inclusion of the statute.Trump, who is facing unprecedented legal peril as he leads the pack of candidates for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, called the target letter “HORRIFYING NEWS” in a post on his Truth Social platform, where he first disclosed the development.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionLast year, the House select committee that investigated the Capitol attack concluded that Trump committed multiple crimes in an attempt to reverse his 2020 defeat to Joe Biden, including conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstruction of an official proceeding.The committee issued symbolic criminal referrals to the justice department, although at that point the justice department had since stepped up its criminal investigation with the addition of new prosecutors in spring 2022 before they were folded into the special counsel’s office.House investigators also concluded that there was evidence for prosecutors to charge Trump with conspiracy to defraud and obstruction of an official proceeding. They also issued referrals for incitement of insurrection, which was not listed in the target letter.Should prosecutors charge Trump in the federal January 6 investigation, the case could go to trial much more quickly than the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case – before the 2024 election – because pre-trial proceedings would not be delayed by rules governing national security materials.Trump was charged last month for retaining national security materials and obstructing the government’s efforts to retrieve them. Trump and his co-defendant, his valet Walt Nauta, who was charged with conspiring to obstruct and making false statements to the FBI, have both pleaded not guilty.The target letter to Trump comes weeks before the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, is expected to charge Trump and his allies for their efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state of Georgia, the Guardian has previously reported. More