(WASHINGTON) — Special Counsel Jack Smith on Tuesday filed new charges against Donald Trump over his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. The indictment retains the same criminal charges but limits the allegations against him after the Supreme Court granted former presidents broad immunity.
The new indictment strikes a section of the charge that dealt with Trump’s interactions with the Justice Department, an area of conduct for which the Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 decision last month that Trump was entitled to immunity from prosecution.
In the updated criminal case, Jeffrey Clark, a Justice Department official who supported Trump’s false claims of election fraud, is no longer listed as a co-conspirator. Trump’s co-conspirators were not named in any of the indictments but have been identified through public records and other means.
The special counsel’s office said the updated indictment, filed in federal court in Washington, was issued by a grand jury that had not previously heard evidence in the case.
The indictment further alleges that Trump attempted to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence not to certify the electoral vote count. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court that the interactions between Trump and Pence were official acts for which “Trump is at least presumptively immune from prosecution.”
The question, Roberts wrote, is whether the government can rebut “that presumption of immunity.”
____
Associated Press writer Mark Sherman in Washington contributed to this report.
