Donald Trump facing four charges over efforts to overturn 2020 election result
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Donald Trump is facing four criminal charges over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election result and tying him to the 6 January storming of the US Capitol building, prosecutors say.
The indictment focuses on schemes by the former Republican president and his allies to subvert the transfer of power and keep him in office despite his loss to Democrat Joe Biden.
Trump has been summoned to appear before a federal magistrate judge in Washington on Thursday.
He has maintained the outcome of the 3 November 2020 election was incorrect, with many of his supporters and confidants also expressing doubts about the vote.
Prosecutors have stated Trump lost the election but he was “determined to remain in power” and for two months he “spread lies” that there had been fraud and that he had won.
“These claims were false and the defendant knew they were false… but the defendant repeated and widely disseminated them anyway”, said the indictment.
His supporters stormed the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 in the wake of the result.
Trump now faces four charges:
• Conspiracy to defraud the US
• Conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding
• Obstruction of, and attempt to obstruct, an official proceeding
• Conspiracy against rights.
The US justice department (DoJ) alleges Trump “pursued unlawful means” of “discounting legitimate votes and subverting the election results” through three criminal conspiracies.
It said one conspiracy was to defraud the US by using dishonesty, fraud and deceit to “obstruct the nation’s process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the election”.
The DoJ said the second conspiracy was to impede the January 6th congressional proceeding at which the collected results of the presidential election are counted and certified.
The third alleged conspiracy was against the right to vote and to have the vote counted, the department said. The indictment also alleged Trump “attempted to, and did, corruptly obstruct and impede the certification of the electoral vote”.
Earlier, Mr Trump said on his Truth Social platform: “I hear that deranged Jack Smith, in order to interfere with the presidential election of 2024, will be putting out yet another Fake Indictment of your favourite president, me, at 5pm.
“Why didn’t they do this 2.5 years ago? Why did they wait so long? Because they wanted to put it right in the middle of my campaign. Prosecutorial misconduct!”
Mr Trump’s latest charges add to his ongoing legal woes, with recent court appearances in Miami and New York.
In Miami, Mr Trump pleaded not guilty to allegations that he unlawfully kept national security documents when he left office and lied to officials, trying to recover them.
He also pleaded not guilty in New York to 37 charges, relating to falsifying business records “in order to conceal damaging information and unlawful activity from American voters before and after the 2016 election”.
Mr Trump is also counter-suing E. Jean Carroll, who alleged he raped her in the 1990s – he was found guilty of sexually assaulting and defaming her, but not raping Ms Carroll in a civil case.
