(RightWing.org) – On August 1, a federal grand jury impaneled by Special Counsel Jack Smith handed down a four-count indictment against former President Donald Trump in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.
The news was leaked to the press in the early afternoon, and Smith unsealed the indictment in time to make a primetime speech aired by most of the country’s mainstream media outlets. He thanked the FBI and other federal investigators and praised the so-called heroism of law enforcement officials who defended the US Capitol Building on January 6, 2021.
The special counsel told viewers the indictment charged Trump with three crimes despite his earlier declaration there were four.
- Conspiring to defraud the United States
- Conspiring to disenfranchise voters
- Conspiring and attempting to obstruct an official proceeding
Smith also suggested every American read his indictment “in full.” However, a review of that 45-page document tells a slightly different story.
Trump Faces New Indictment Issued by Washington DC Grand Jury
A quick perusal of the soon-to-be infamous Trump indictment showed that Smith added a third section to his confusing narrative. Like his press conference, the document begins with the header listing four counts and a narrative detailing three conspiracy counts. But, this time, he added a third section — a long-form [wordy] explanation of the original four counts charged at the beginning of the document.
Reviewing the document, it appears that Trump faces four criminal charges, including two conspiracy counts involving the former president’s alleged intention to “defraud” the US and hinder an official proceeding. The first count is the only one matching Smith’s televised statement.
Count three involves Trump’s alleged effort to obstruct and the attempted obstruction of an official proceeding — which roughly parallels Smith’s third primetime declaration, minus any claim of a conspiracy.
The grand jury charged Trump with waging a “conspiracy against rights” in its fourth count. That purported crime relates to the special counsel’s second claim the panel indicted the former president for “conspiring to disenfranchise voters.” Affectionally referred to as the Ku Klux Klan Act by prosecutors, 18 USC § 241 is a Civil War-era law enacted to protect the voting rights of formerly enslaved people.
In short, the indictment appears to have developed four theories criminalizing Trump’s efforts to look into numerous allegations of issues calling the integrity of the 2020 presidential election into question.
Republicans React to Trump Indictment
As one might expect, several ranking Republicans reacted to the indictment. For instance, Trump posted a statement from his campaign on his Truth Social page calling out the “lawlessness” of the ongoing persecutions of the former president and his supporters. The notice also accused the “Biden Crime Family” and their “weaponized” Justice Department of attempting to interfere in the upcoming 2024 presidential election.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) posted a tweet cautioning that when one attempts to drain the swamp — “The Swamp fights back.” He also affirmed that Trump hadn’t done anything wrong.
Likewise, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) stated that recent polling confirmed Trump’s status as President Joe Biden’s “leading political opponent.” He concluded his written remarks by vowing to “uncover the truth about Biden, Inc.” and the country’s two-tiered justice system.
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