Former President Donald Trump was indicted Tuesday by a federal grand jury on four counts related to charged he conspired to defraud the Unite States and overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. The indictment from special counsel Jack Smith’s office said: “The purpose of the conspiracy was to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election by using knowingly false claims of election fraud to obstruct the government function by which those results are collected, counted and certified, and it accuses Trump of taking part in three criminal conspiracies: “to defraud the United States by using dishonesty, fraud and deceit” to obstruct the electoral vote process; to “impede the January 6 congressional proceeding at which the collected results of the presidential election are counted and certified;” and “against the right to vote and to have that vote counted.”
Tuesday’s development is the latest in a series of legal troubles for the former President. He also faces separate federal charges over allegedly obstructing an investigation into classified documents at his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago. In addition to these federal charges, Trump is fighting criminal charges over accounting for hush money payments in Manhattan; a defamation lawsuit filed by E. Jean Carroll, the writer; and a grand jury investigation in Georgia over his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in that state.
Trump is due to be arraigned on these latest charges on Thursday. The continued legal troubles for Trump are looming over the 2024 presidential election; the former President remains the front-runner for the Republican Party nomination.
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