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For the third time since March, former U.S. president Donald Trump has been indicted on criminal charges – this time in connection with alleged attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. On Tuesday evening, a 45-page indictment was unsealed in Washington, D.C. detailing the latest charges against America’s forty-fifth president – who also happens to be the runaway frontrunner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.
Special prosecutor Jack Smith charged Trump with four felony counts including conspiracy to defraud the United States as well as conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding. Six unnamed people were listed as co-conspirators stemming from Trump’s alleged attempts to overturn the election results. None of those people were charged.
The January 6-related indictments have been expected ever since Trump revealed he had received a target letter in the investigation two weeks ago.
The latest indictment alleged Trump was “determined to stay in power” following his failed reelection bid – and that he interfered with official proceedings on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021 to that end. That was the same day a deadly riot occurred at the U.S. Capitol building when Trump backers stormed the building.
In a statement posted to his Truth Social platform, Trump’s campaign blamed the charges on the administration of Joe Biden – called the indictment 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.”
The statement went on to compare Biden and his allies to the Nazis.
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“The lawlessness of these persecutions against President Trump and his supporters is reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930s, the former Soviet Union and other authoritarian, dictatorial regimes,” the statement noted. “These un-American witch hunts will fail and president Trump will be reelected to the White House so he can save our country from the abuse, corruption and incompetence that is running through the veins of our country at levels never seen before.”
As he makes his case for reelection, though, Trump must first make his way through an increasingly busy schedule of court hearings and trials – starting with another federal arraignment this week. Trump was ordered to appear before federal magistrate Moxila Upadhyaya at 4:00 p.m. EDT on Thursday (August 3, 2023) to answer to the latest charges he is facing.
Tuesday’s indictment comes nearly two months after Trump was indicted in a separate federal case in Florida. Those allegations stem from Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents. Prior to that, in late March, Trump was indicted by New York district attorney Alvin Bragg on state charges related to payouts to multiple mistresses during the 2016 presidential campaign. Trump is also facing a criminal investigation in Georgia over allegations related to the 2020 election. In fact, there was word Tuesday evening barricades would be erected around the Fulton County courthouse in Atlanta – which was widely seen as an indication the Georgia charges were about to be filed.
Several of Trump’s GOP opponents wasted little time in commenting on the indictments. His leading rival, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, slammed the process by which Trump would be tried in the nation’s capital – saying “it is unfair to have to stand trial before a jury that is reflective of the swamp mentality.”
“One of the reasons our country is in decline is the politicization of the rule of law,” DeSantis tweeted. “No more excuses — I will end the weaponization of the federal government.”
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RELATED | AS TRUMP SOARS, CONSERVATIVE GROUP TARGETS HIS VULNERABILITY
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Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy carried it a step further, vowing to pardon the former president.
“The corrupt federal police just won’t stop until they’ve achieved their mission: Eliminate Trump,” Ramaswamy tweeted.
Democrats took a decidedly different view of the development, accusing Trump of participating in an “insurrection” on January 6, 2021.
“The third indictment of Donald Trump illustrates in shocking detail that the violence of January 6th was the culmination of a months-long criminal plot led by the former president to defy democracy and overturn the will of the American people,” Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer tweeted.
In June, Trump pleaded not guilty to 37 felony counts in the classified document case. That charge now stands at 40 counts, after three more were filed last week. Florida District judge Aileen Cannon has set a May 20, 2024, trial date in that matter. Trump has also pleaded not guilty to 34 of falsifying business records in connection with the hush money payments allegedly made during his 2016 presidential campaign.
So far, Trump’s legal woes haven’t dampened GOP enthusiasm for his third presidential bid. Trump entered the day with the support of 53.9 percent of Republican primary voters nationwide – a margin of 35.8 percentage points over DeSantis.
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THE INDICTMENTS …
(Via: U.S. District Court)
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
J. Mark Powell is an award-winning former TV journalist, government communications veteran, and a political consultant. He is also an author and an avid Civil War enthusiast. Got a tip or a story idea for Mark? Email him at mark@fitsnews.com.
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12 comments
Republicans will never live down their support of this insurrectionist traitor garbage bag.
Republicans will still rule in SC!
Trump continues to soar!
Our one, true great dear leader!
Witch hunt
Those six unnamed conspirators must be trampling over each other trying to flip on Trump first or they were the poor last suckers to try.
#winning
Bless his heart.
I am guessing that Senator Lindsey Graham (T-SC) is one of those co-conspirators.
The giveaway that Will didn’t write this is the omission of a reference to “Joe Biden’s justice department.”
Trump’s only defense is he didn’t commit fraud because he really believed he won the election because My Pillow Guy said so, which would be an admission of being the delusional, insane grifter that he is.
Hey deplorables, keep sending this “billionaire” your hard earned money.
Witch hunt is understatement. No one will ever convince me that the 2020 election was not stolen from President Trump. I watched it unfold in real time that evening. Swing states that just stopped counting for a few hours-like the fake water leak in GA. Then ballots appeared from everywhere as if by magic. The fix was in. And GA is complicit, as is AZ and PA, at a minimum. We have a DOJ that is more than willing to do anything (still) to stop Trump. I am not a conspiracy theorist, never have been, but we are seeing the gaslighting & persecution of an innocent man. We should all be afraid for our country & personal freedoms. If they will do it to him, we the people don’t stand much of a chance.
You were lied to, you’re just not able to see it. Trump lost. I mean, he lost terribly just from the notion of popular vote, but he also lost the incredibly broken electoral college. He never proved one iota of voter fraud or anything. There’s no evidence. There’s no credible witnesses. There’s no Kraken. No judge entertained his conjecture whatsoever, even the ones he nominated, even the 6-3 Supreme Court he helped create. There’s just a bunch of sham lawyers and pillow salesmen who are now actively trying to avoid massive lawsuits and jail time for the damage caused by entertaining a con man billionaire and his multi-year long grift.
This is why Republicans need to be able to lie. This is why they defend it so fervently. Lying is their business model. It’s in their media, their politics, their propaganda. The thuggery on January 6 committed by Republicans and Trump followers was borne from those lies, and the results of it will be a scar forever enshrined in the history books of the United States of America, all for a narcissist’s own benefit.
You probably won’t be receptive to this reply but I’m sorry you fell victim to this. No one is immune to propaganda. It’s hard for people to really come to terms with this notion but it is the truth. It’s how cults form. It is a vile thing that these guys perpetrated on this country and we’ll feel it for years and years. The price of freedom is being vigilant to tyranny, and this includes guarding the use of free speech by combating those who would seek to abuse it. I just hope those who are victims to the propaganda are able to break free from it eventually.
We can all hope that there is an afterlife where all these cons will live in shame, unable to hide in a subterfuge of lies, being judged by the entirety of man for all eternity. Hope is great, but the only way this stops, the only way we can prevent this being done in the future, is to bring these bastards to justice today. This is what is happening to Trump now.
Actually, what you saw, unlike what Fox told you that you saw, were campaign workers pulling out voting machines (those little suitcases) to get the voting counts from them. That’s how elections work and that’s specifically how those machines work and you’d know that if you’d ever been a poll worker or been a counter for a county election office. I’m old-school and can remember the days in which we had to hand-count the ballots. Instead, you chose to believe that votes were mysteriously appearing from the ether that weren’t real votes. You do know that Fox News had to pay out almost a BILLION dollars for pushing these conspiracy theories don’t you? Oh right, you don’t, because Fox News never told their viewers that, and that is the real reason they settled instead of going to court. They didn’t want their viewers to know and can’t even report honestly on themselves. Trump never broke higher than the mid 40’s in any popularity poll once he became president. His approval ratings sucked. He tanked the economy and let loose a virus that killed millions by promoting conspiracy theories about it and the vaccines. And y’all ate it up like it was manna from heaven. And none of it was true. He was a laughing-stock at every world leader meeting and Putin rolled right over his huge orange butt. And yet, the worship by his minions continues in abject opposition to reality. Go read just the first 2 pages of the charging document. Maybe that will finally open your eyes but if not, keep sending your checks to Trump.
Guess what?
You ARE a conspiracy person now!
Freedom from Consequences is not a protected Constitutional right.