- SEE 78 charges Trump now faces, and prison time
Former US President, Donald Trump was indicted Tuesday, August 1 by special counsel Jack Smith, who charged the president with four counts in connection with his attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
According to Smith, the 77-year-old former president ‘pursued unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the election results’ in a desperate bid to stay in power after he lost to Joe Biden.
Prosecutors led by Smith charged that the 45th president’s incessant claims of election fraud costing him re-election ‘were false and [Trump] knew they were false.’
‘But the Defendant repeated and widely disseminated them anyway — to make his knowingly false claims appear legitimate, create an intense national atmosphere of mistrust and anger, and erode public faith in the administration of the election.’
The indictment would be the second brought by Smith against Trump.
Trump, who already faces 40 federal counts in connection with allegations that he hoarded national security documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
The grand jury investigating the former president met for several hours at the federal courthouse in Washington, DC Tuesday, but ended the meeting a couple of hours before the indictment was handed down.
