WASHINGTON: Donald Trump was indicted on Tuesday over his efforts to upend the results of the 2020 US election — the most serious legal threat yet to the former president as he campaigns to return to the White House.

It is the third criminal indictment of the 77-year-old Trump since March and charges him with three counts of conspiracy and one count of obstruction.

The former US president has remained defiant despite an accumulation of legal woes and sought to spin his latest indictments into a 2024 campaign pitch claiming the government “corruption” and legal attacks against him have plunged America into decline.

The frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, is already scheduled to go on trial in Florida in May of next year for allegedly mishandling top secret government documents.

Ex-president seeks to spin his latest indictment into a 2024 campaign pitch

The new charges, two of which carry maximum sentences of 20 years in prison, raise the prospect of Trump being embroiled in more legal proceedings at the height of what is expected to be a bitter and divisive presidential campaign.

The indictment brought by special counsel Jack Smith accuses Trump of conspiracy to defraud the United States and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding — the January 6, 2021 joint session of Congress held to certify Democrat Joe Biden’s election victory.

Trump is also accused in the 45-page indictment of seeking to disenfranchise American voters with his false claims that he won the November 2020 presidential election.

“Shortly after election day — which fell on November 3, 2020 — the Defendant launched his criminal scheme,” the indictment, handed down by a grand jury in Washington, 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,” it said.

Smith, a former war crimes prosecutor at the Hague, said the January 6 attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters was “an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy.” “It was fueled by lies,” Smith told reporters in brief remarks.

“Lies by the defendant targeted at obstructing a bedrock function of the US government — the nation’s process of collecting, counting and certifying the results of the presidential election.” Part of that plan, the indictment alleges, was to have then-vice president Mike Pence use his role as presiding officer over the January 6 joint session to throw out several states’ votes.

Pence ultimately refused, issuing a public statement saying that he did not believe the Constitution allowed him that power.

The case is expected to be heard by US District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan, an ap­­pointee of former Demo­cratic president Barack Obama.

Trump unbowed

The former US president has sought to spin his latest indictments into a 2024 campaign pitch, claiming the government “corruption” and legal attacks against him have plunged America into decline.

The twice-impeached Republican has remained defiant despite an accumulation of legal woes that could see him tried in court and sent to prison before the presidential vote late next year.

In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump suggested the indictment was all the more reason for his supporters to circle the wagons and elect him next year.

“I have never had so much support on anything before,” Trump said in a five-sentence post written in all caps.

“This unprecedented indictment of a former (highly successful!) president, & the leading candidate, by far, in both the Republican Party and the 2024 general election, has awoken the world to the corruption, scandal & failure that has taken place in the United States for the past three years,” he added.

“America is a nation in decline, but we will make it great again, greater than ever before.”

Published in Dawn, August 3rd, 2023