The third criminal indictment of President Trump, this one for efforts to overturn the 2020 election, escalates the legal peril for the former president even as he tightens his grip on his party’s 2024 presidential nomination. 

Mr. Trump joins 1,000 other January 6 defendants who have been charged by the Department of Justice. Mr. Trump’s indictment comprises four counts: Conspiracy to Defraud the United States, Conspiracy to Obstruct an Official Proceeding, Obstruction, and Conspiracy against Rights. The charges carry penalties ranging from five to 20 years. 

In a statement after the indictment was handed up, Mr. Smith “encouraged everyone” to read it in full and called the events of January 6 an “unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy” that “was fueled by lies.” He noted that “investigations of other individuals continues.” He recalled that Mr. Trump is owed the presumption of innocence.      

The former president on Tuesday evening called the new indictment a “witch hunt” and “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.” He compared his prosecution to “Nazi Germany in the 1930’s” and “the Former Soviet Union.”   

Mr. Trump will now stand trial for his refusal to accept the 2020 election’s outcome. Mr. Smith writes that “Despite having lost,” Mr. Trump “was determined to remain in power.” While he is the only named defendant, the indictment mentions six unindicted co-conspirators. They could be named in a superseding indictment, or pressured to ‘flip’ on Mr. Trump.  

The indictment asserts that the alleged conspiracies perpetrated by Mr. Trump “targeted a bedrock function of the United States government: the nation’s process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election.” It accuses Mr. Trump of employing “dishonesty, fraud, and conceit” to “impair, obstruct, and defeat” the federal government.

Mr. Smith notes that Mr. Trump’s claims about the election “were false” and “he knew they were false.” He characterizes Mr. Trump’s response to the election as a “criminal scheme” fueled by “pervasive and destabilizing lies about election fraud.” The indictment traces that alleged scheme across a range of states. It also homes in on the pressure Mr. Trump exerted on Vice President Pence. 

The indictment accuses Mr. Trump of working to deprive Americans of “a right and privilege secured to them by the Constitution and laws of the United States — that is, the right to vote, and to have that vote counted.” Mr. Smith accuses Mr. Trump of acting “knowingly” meaning that he knew that he lost the election. Mr. Smith also alleges that Mr. Trump worked to “create an intense atmosphere of mistrust and anger.”

The case will be heard by Judge Tanya Chutkan, who was nominated to the federal bench by President Obama and has become known for giving very strict sentences to the January 6 protesters who’ve been convicted in her courtroom.