In the evening of August 1, 2023 Jack Smith, the special counsel investigating Donald Trump, has issued for charges against Donald Trump because of the former president’s attempt to overturn the result of the free and fair 2020 presidential election:
– a conspiracy to defraud the United States by using dishonesty, fraud and deceit to impair, obstruct and defeat how the government collects, counts and certifies the results of presidential elections (18 U.S.C. § 371)
– a conspiracy to corruptly obstruct and impede the certification of the electoral college results by the United States Congress on January 6 (violation of 18 U.S.C. 1512(k))
– a conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding (18 U.S.C. 1512(k))
– and a conspiracy against the right to vote and to have one’s vote counted aka a conspiracy against civil rights (18 U.S.C. 241).
The evidence is overwhelming. Donald Trump was tampering with a witness, he tried to push then Vice-President Mike Pence not to certify that Joe Biden had won the 2020 presidential election, in a recorded one hour phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on January 2, 2021 Donald Trump tried to push his fellow Republican “to find votes” so he would “win” the state of Georgia, etc. Donald Trump belongs behind bars, but the special counsel has to proof it legally. It would be catastrophic for the democracy in the United States if the Harvard Law School graduate Jack Smith should fail.
Donald Trump not only prematurely and falsely claimed to have won the 2020 presidential election, he later tried to overturn the election result. The 45-page indictment by Jack Smith accuses Donald Trump of knowingly spreading election fraud lies that ultimately threatened the American democracy, and all of this in a conspiracy together with six unnamed co-conspirators, who are described as four Trump lawyers, one political consultant and one Justice Department official.
Jack Smith rightly writes at the beginning of his 45-page document that Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election. The special counsel then notes: “Despite having lost, the Defendant was determined to remain in power. So for more than two months following election day on November 3, 2020 the Defendant spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won. These claims were false, and the Defendant knew that 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.”
At the end of his 45-page indictment, the special counsel Jack Smith writes: “DONALD J. TRUMP, did knowingly combine, conspire, confederate, and agree with co-conspirators, known and unknown to the Grand Jury, to injure, oppress, threaten, and intimidate one or more persons in the free exercise and enjoyment of a right and privilege secured to them by the Constitution and laws ofthe United States that is, the right to vote, and to have one’s vote counted (violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 241).”
Regarding the purpose of the consiracy, Jack Smith writes: “The purpose of the conspiracy was to overturn the legitimate results ofthe 2020 presidential election by using knowingly false claims of election fraud to obstruct the federal government function by which those results are collected, counted, and certified.”
Once again: Donald Trump belongs behind bars, of either a prison or a mental institution. Full stop.
Michael Kirk: Lies, Politics and Democracy. PBS documentary, September 2022. 1h53 minutes. From Amazon.com.
Mark Leibovich: Thank You for Your Servitude: Donald Trump’s Washington and the Price of Submission. Penguin Press, 2022, 352 pages. Audiobook, Kindle eBook, hardcover from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk.
Robert Draper: Weapons of Mass Delusion. Penguin Press, October 2022, 400 pages. Order the hardcover or download the eBook or audiobook from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk.
Steven Levitsky, Daniel Ziblatt: Howe Democracies Die. Crown, 2019, 320 pages. Order the book from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de.
Peter Baker, Susan Glasser: The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021, Doubleday, September 2022, 752 pages, Order the hardcover or download the Kindle ebook, audiobook from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de.
Jonathan Karl: Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show. Dutton, November 2021, 384 pages. Order the hardcover or dowload the Kindle ebook or audiobook from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk.
Jonathan Martin, Alexander Burns: This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America’s Future. Simon & Schuster, May 2022, 480 pages. Order the hardcover or download the Kindle eBook or audiobook from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de.
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“The Defendant’s conspiracy to impair, obstruct,and defeat the federal government function through dishonesty, fraud, and deceit included the following manner and means:
a. The Defendant and co-conspirators used knowingly false claims ofelection fraud to get state legislators and election officials to subvert the legitimate election results and change electoral votes for the Defendant’s opponent, Joseph R.Biden, Jr., to electoral votes for the Defendant. That is, on the pretext of baseless fraud claims, the Defendant pushed officials in certain states to ignore the popular vote; disenfranchise millions of voters; dismiss legitimate electors; and ultimately, cause the ascertainment of and voting by illegitimate electors in favor of the Defendant.
b. The Defendantand co-conspirators organized fraudulent slates of electors in seven targeted states (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin), attemptingto mimic the procedures that the legitimate electors were supposed to follow under the Constitution and other federal and state laws. This included causing the fraudulent electors to meet on the day appointed by federal law on which legitimate electors were to gather and cast their votes; cast fraudulent votes for the Defendant; and sign certificates falsely representing that they were legitimateelectors. Some fraudulent electors were tricked into participating based on the understanding that their votes would be used only if the Defendant succeeded in outcome-determinative lawsuits within their state, which the Defendant never did. The Defendant and co-conspirators then caused these fraudulent electors to transmit their false certificates to the Vice President and other government officials to be counted at the certification proceeding on January 6.
c. The Defendant and co-conspirators attempted to use the power and authority of the Justice Department to conduct sham election crime investigations and to send a letter to the targeted states that falsely claimed that the Justice Department had identified significant concerns that may have impacted the election outcome; that sought to advance the Defendant’s fraudulent elector plan by using the Justice Department’s authority to falsely presentthe fraudulent electors as a valid alternativeto the legitimate electors; and that urged, on behalf of the Justice Department, the targeted states legislatures to convene to create the opportunity to choose the fraudulent electors over the legitimate electors.
d. The Defendant and co-conspirators attempted to enlistthe Vice Presidentto use his ceremonial role at the January 6 certification proceeding to fraudulently alter the election results. First, using knowingly false claims o felection fraud, the Defendant and co-conspirators attempted to convince the Vice President to use the Defendant’s fraudulent electors, reject legitimate electoral votes, or send legitimate electoral votes to state legislatures for review rather than countingthem. When that failed, on the morning of January 6, the Defendant and co-conspirators repeated knowingly false claims of election fraud to gathered supporters, falsely told them that the Vice President had the authority to and might alter the election results, and directed them to the Capitol to obstruct the certification proceeding and exert pressure on the Vice President to take the fraudulent actions he had previously refused.
e. After it became public on the afternoon of January6 that the Vice President would not fraudulently alter the election results, a large and angry crowd including many individuals whom the Defendant had deceived into believing the Vice President could and might change the election results violently attacked the Capitol and halted the proceeding. As violence ensued, the Defendant and co-conspirators exploited the disruption by redoubling efforts to levy false claims of election fraud and convince Members of Congress to further delay the certification based on those claims.”
P.S. You can easily find the full text online.
Official portrait of President Donald J. Trump, October 6, 2017. Official White House photograph by Shealah Craighead.
Article added on August 2, 2023 at 14:56 German time. Last details added at 15:49.
