The Hidden Messages in the New Trump Indictment
The latest indictment of former President Trump is a well-told narrative strategically designed to preemptively counter expected defenses and delay tactics by Trump’s legal team. The opening sentences of the very first paragraph in the indictment say it all: “The Defendant, Donald J. Trump, was the forty-fifth President of the United States and a candidate for re-election in 2020. The Defendant lost the 2020 election.”
With these words, contained in an indictment issued by a grand jury in the District of Columbia, the United States Department of Justice represented by Special Counsel Jack Smith makes plain that the alleged crimes in the case don’t arise from what Trump said about the election—or even what he thought about losing the election—but from what Trump did in response to losing the election.
The forty-five page indictment charges the 45th President with three conspiracies, arising from his efforts to defraud the United States, obstruct the certification of the Electoral College vote and, trying to deprive the American people of their civil right to have their votes counted and honored. The indictment is a “speaking indictment” that describes the multiple strategies deployed by Trump and six unnamed co-conspirators to overturn the election results that predated the brutal physical violence that occurred during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.