Donald Trump indicted on four counts in 2020 election probe: live updates

We've wrapped live coverage for the night, but we'll be bringing you more on Thursday when former President Donald Trump makes his first court appearance in this case in Washington, D.C.

• 🎧 Find our recaps of the historic indictment and what it means on The NPR Politics Podcast and on NPR.org.
• 📝Subscribe to our Up First morning newsletter and the NPR Politics weekly newsletter.

Outside the federal courthouse where Donald Trump was indicted on Tuesday there was little sign of protest from either Trump supporters or those protesting the former president.

This is the first time that Trump has been indicted without a showing from his supporters outside the courthouse where proceedings were taking place.

On March 30 in New York where Trump was indicted on money-laundering charges, some 50 to 60 protestors came out in support. In June when Trump was indicted in Miami in the classified documents case, a couple hundred protesters showed up in support of the president, according to some estimates.

In both cases Trump encouraged his base to appear at the courthouse via his Truth Social app.

Trump posted on the Friday ahead of his Florida indictment “SEE YOU IN MIAMI ON TUESDAY!!!” Before being indicted in New Yorkhe posted , “THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE AND FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK. PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!"

In the most recent indictment, Trump didn’t appear to incite protest from his base, but did continually post about special counsel Jack Smith, calling him "deranged" and the investigation as “prosecutorial misconduct.”

Alex Wong

/

Getty Images North America

The last time Donald Trump was indicted at the federal level, he'd added two new attorneys before he arrived at the courthouse for his arraignment. And that was after two other attorneys quit the case the week before.

NPR's Andrea Bernstein says it makes sense that the former president has an unusual number of lawyers.

"For starters, he has an unusual number of legal issues," Bernstein said in an interview with All Things Considered in June. There's also Trump's strong intuition. "As we've seen, Trump often thinks he has a better idea of how to handle legal issues than his own lawyers, and he often overrules them," Bernstein said.

We also know that Trump's style as a client has caused him to lose lawyers. The indictment charging Trump with mishandling classified documents claims that he asked his lawyers to commit crimes for him. He even suggested they lie to the Justice Department or destroy documents, according to the indictment.

And this is consistent from accounts we've heard from former Trump attorneys connected with other scandals — think Bill Barr, Michael Cohen and Pat Cipollone (he was not a personal attorney but the former White House counsel).

"So far, in the New York criminal cases, where it really matters, Trump has been able to keep some very well-respected lawyers on his team and to make sure they're paid," Bernstein said. "Other lawyers, like Rudy Giuliani, are ideologically committed to Trump, but that loyalty comes with a price. The white-shoe law firm that Giuliani was a part of asked him to leave due to reputational damage."

Former President Trump is the only person who is charged and he is the only defendant in this latest indictment. But it scatters some clues for the future in terms of who else might could potentially face charges.

There are six people labeled as co-conspirators. They are given individual numbers and potentially identifying traits but they are not identified by name are in the court document.

Even so, there is plenty of biographical information about them, including that some are attorneys who helped promote bogus election fraud claims. In one case, co-conspirator 3 is described as an attorney who privately acknowledged the unfounded election fraud claims were "crazy." Another, co-conspirator 4, was a Justice Department official who worked on civil matters and "attempted to use the Justice Department to open sham election crime investigations and influence state legislatures."

And their descriptions line up with that of people who could be of interest to investigators, such as former Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman and Sidney Powell, and former DOJ attorney Jeffrey Clark.

Two women jurists are in line to oversee the new case against former President Trump.

Trump is scheduled to make an initial appearance Thursday afternoon before U.S. Magistrate Judge Moxila A. Upadhyaya, who was appointed to an eight-year term as a magistrate in 2022. She was born in India and grew up near Kansas City, Mo., according to a biography on the court’s website. The judge earned a journalism degree before attending law school.

The U.S. District Court Judge who will preside over the Trump January 6^th case is Tanya Chutkan, a former public defender who was appointed to the federal bench by Barack Obama. Chutkan has handled a number of high-profile cases during her tenure on the bench, including one involving Russian national Maria Butina.

Chutkan was born in Jamaica, according to her court biography.

Seth Wenig/AP

/

Pool AP

Donald Trump is the first former president in United States history to be criminally indicted, and he has now been charged twice federally and once in a state court. He's also under investigation in Georgia over his attempts to overturn the 2020 election results there, and he's been embroiled in civil lawsuits out of New York.

Trump has pleaded not guilty in each of the criminal cases he's been charged in and says he is not liable in the other cases. Here's where the various proceedings and investigations stand:

The Stormy Daniels hush money case

Number of charges: 34

Expected trial date: March 25, 2024, in New York

With this case, Trump became the first former U.S. president to be criminally indicted. The grand jury voted to indict him on 34 felony counts of business record falsification in March.

Allegations in this case go back to before Trump was elected president. They are tied to hush money payments made before the 2016 election to the adult film star Stormy Daniels to cover up an alleged affair.

The Mar-a-Lago classified documents case

Number of charges: 40

Expected trial date: May 20, 2024

Trump pleaded not guilty to 37 federal chargesin June for allegedly storing dozens of classified documents at his Florida resort and then refusing to hand them over to the FBI and the National Archives.

New York AG Letitia James' suit against Trump for alleged fraud

Expected trial date: Oct. 2, 2023, in New York

In this civil lawsuit, James claims that Trump committed fraud by inflating his net worth by billions of dollars in order to get richer. James is seeking around $250 million in penalties and a ban on Trump, his children and members of his executive team from operating businesses in the state of New York.

E. Jean Carroll case

Expected trial date: Jan. 15, 2024, in New York

In May, a federal jury found Trump liable for battery and defamation in this lawsuit. The jury in this case said he did sexually abuse the writer and defamed her when he denied her allegation. Carroll was awarded $5 million in damages.

Following her victory, Carroll and her lawyers asked a court to expand the scope of a prior case against Trump, seeking at least an additional $10 million in damages.

Ongoing criminal investigations

The former president is also facing a criminal investigation in Georgia where District Attorney Fani Willishas impaneled a grand jury to investigate efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn 2020 presidential election results in the state. This came after the publication of a phone call in January 2021of Trump pressuring Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find" enough ballots to overcome Joe Biden's margin of victory.

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

/

Getty Images North America

The special counsel's case against Trump is quite broad, encompassing the period from Election Day 2020 all the way to January 6th. And it alleges a widespread conspiracy involving attorneys, political operatives and officials to spread lies about the election, submit false slates of electors, pressure election officials in states to ultimately keep Trump in power.

And it alleges that Trump, at the heart of all that, tried to exploit the violence and chaos of Jan. 6 to achieve that same ends.

The indictment includes a long list of instances in which Trump's allies — including Vice President Mike Pence, senior leaders of the Justice Department, senior campaign staffers, etc. — all told him that there was no election fraud.

But Trump wouldn't listen, and that frustrated the people around him, the indictment says.

In one instance, a "Senior Campaign Advisor" allegedly complained that the "elite strike force legal team" kept making claims that they could not back up.

At another point, Trump was angry with Pence (because Pence said he could not block Biden's electoral college win) and Trump allegedly responded by saying "You're too honest."

➡️This was excerpted from an interview with NPR's Tom Dresbach that aired on All Things Considered. Listen to the full interview here.

Joed Viera

/

AFP via Getty Images

If you've been following this live page, you know that Donald Trump and his allies are actively working to control the narrative, calling this a "fake" indictment and accusing the Biden administration of trying to interfere with the 2024 election.

But as NPR White House Correspondent Franco Ordoñez pointed out in an interview with All Things Considered, the attacks from Trump and his supporters are focusing on the process — not so much the substance.

"They claim these are politically motivated charges. They attack the special counsel. But they don’t necessarily refute specific allegations," Ordoñez said. "They don’t argue Trump never incited those followers who attacked the Capitol. They never say that Trump didn’t seek a group of fake electors."

This is all be part of the strategy. "Trump has conditioned his supporters to dismiss most all allegations against him as being politically motivated," Ordoñez said.

On the other hand, this indictment, for some, might feel heavier than previous allegations. Jan. 6, 2021, was a day that millions of Americans either watched live on television or on replay — multiple times. More than 1,000 people have been arrested in connection with the attack. And at the heart of the case is Donald Trump.

"It's important to note that this success he's having, politically, is among Republican voters," Ordoñez said. "It's one thing to [be ahead in the race for] the Republican nomination, it's another to win the general election."

➡️Listen to the full interview with Franco Ordoñez on All Things Considered.

University of Richmond Law Professor Carl Tobias called the indictment against former President Donald Trump "damning" and representing real "legal jeopardy" for him.

Here's a detailed summary of the charges Trump is facing:

• conspiracy to defraud the United States applies to Trump's repeated and widespread efforts to spread false claims about the November 2020 election while knowing they were not true and for allegedly attempting to illegally discount legitimate votes all with the goal of overturning the 2020 election, prosecutors claim in the indictment.
  
• the charge of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding was brought due to the alleged organized planning of Trump and his allies to disrupt the electoral vote's certification in January 2021.
  
• obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding is tied to Trump and his co-defendants' actual efforts after the November 2020 election until Jan. 7, 2021 to block the official certification proceeding in Congress.
  
• conspiracy against rights is a Civil War-era law that applies to Trump and his co-conspirators' alleged attempts to "oppress, threaten and intimidate" people in their right to vote in an election.

Jeff Swensen

/

Getty Images North America

Even before today's indictment, the pile-on effect of mounting legal charges against former President Trump may be starting to take a toll, according to the latest NPR/PBSNewsHour/Marist poll, which was conducted before news broke that Trump had received notice he was a target of special counsel Jack Smith's investigation.

Republicans and Republican-leaning independents saying they believe Trump has done "nothing wrong" dropped 9 points in the last month, from 50% to 41%.

Trump also dropped 6 points in support with that same group when asked whether they were more likely to support Trump or another candidate if he continues to run for president.

But here's the kicker: A solid majority — 58% — continue to say they would support Trump as their standard-bearer.

So more polling and time would be necessary to see if this is a trend, if it continues and if it has a real effect on his chances in the GOP primary. He continues to lead the field by wide margins.

➡️Read more about the latest polling.

Read the 45-page indictment charging former President Donald Trump with four criminal counts, including conspiracy to defraud the United States.

Charlie Neibergall

/

AP

Mike Pence, Trump's vice president who is running against him for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, said that the indictment in D.C. "serves as an important reminder: anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be President of the United States."

"On January 6th, Former President Trump demanded that I choose between him and the Constitution. I chose the Constitution and I always will," Pence said in a statement.

As the 2020 presidential election came to a close, Trump began to turn up the pressure on Pence, seeking his help to remain in office.

Members of Congress met on Jan. 6, 2021, to certify the Electoral College count and Joe Biden's victory with Pence in his ceremonial role as president of the Senate.

Trump wanted Pence to refuse to count certain Electoral College votes — a theory that Pence rejected as unconstitutional.

Ultimately, Pence rebuffed Trump's pressure and refused to block the certification.

But as Congress was meeting on Capitol Hill, Trump was hosting a rally down by the White House. In a long, rambling speech, he repeated his claims of election fraud, told the crowd to "fight like hell" and to march to the Capitol.

Thousands of Trump supporters did just that: They marched from the Ellipse to the Capitol — some of them chanting "Hang Mike Pence!" — where they fought through police lines, stormed the Capitol and sent lawmakers fleeing for safety.

At the start of his 2016 presidential run, Donald Trump seemed pretty confident that he could bend Republican voters to his will. (Remember when he said he could "stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody" without losing voters?)

Now, after two impeachments, three indictments and quite a few scandals in between, Trump is still the undisputed frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination. And he isn't exaggerating when he says that he gets a bump every time he gets an indictment.

In March, several weeks before the first indictment, Trump had just 43% of the vote in Republican polling, according to a RealClearPolitics average. But a day after he was charged in a hush-money scheme to an adult film actress, his numbers had jumped to 50%.

Two months later, he was indicted for mishandling classified documents. His polling average jumped again.

Naturally, polls go up and down. In this case, they did dip a bit, but not much. They were back up as of Monday, ahead of the news of Trump's latest indictment.

J. Scott Applewhite

/

AP

Rep. Bennie Thompson, co-chair of the House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, reacted to the indictment on Twitter tonight saying: “January 6th was a test of American democracy, but the fair trials of those responsible will further demonstrate this Nation’s commitment to the rule of law and hold accountable those who attempted to undermine it.”

Rep. Pete Aguilar, another member of the committee, tweeted: “The January 6th Capitol attack was an assault on our democracy, and everyone involved must be held accountable, including Donald Trump. In our country, nobody is above the law.”

After conducting a wide-reaching investigation and a series of high-profile public hearings, the committee voted in December 2022 to refer former Trump to the Justice Department for prosecution on four criminal charges, including inciting an insurrection, obstructing an official government proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the United States.

Charles Krupa/AP

/

AP

Reaction began to pour in from other Republicans vying to be the GOP nominee in the 2024 presidential election. Some were critical of Trump and others, like Vivek Ramaswamy, sided with the former president in calling his indictment a "politicized persecution and political persecution."

He vowed to pardon Trump if he is elected.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis admitted he had not read the indictment but disapproved of the charges filed in Washington, D.C.

"Washington, DC is a 'swamp' and it is unfair to have to stand trial before a jury that is reflective of the swamp mentality," he tweeted.

Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinsontook a different approach, doubling down that Trump is "morally responsible for the attack on our democracy. Now, with today’s indictment, our system of Justice will determine whether he is criminally responsible."

Hutchinson accused the former president of misleading his supporters.

Rep. Will Hurd accused the former president of launching a presidential bid to stave off incarceration and get financial support for fighting the legal battles.

J. Scott Applewhite

/

AP

Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise reacted to Trump's indictment on Tuesday with questions on the timing of the announcement, calling it a distraction from the ongoing investigation into Hunter Biden.

McCarthy tweeted, “Everyone in America could see what was going to come next: DOJ’s attempt to distract from the news and attack the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, President Trump.”

Scalise accused President Biden of an "outrageous abuse of power" in trying to "persecute his leading political opponent."

Devon Archer, a business associate of Hunter Biden, testified before the House Oversight Committee on Monday. The committee has yet to release a transcript of the testimony.

Alex Edelman

/

AFP via Getty Images

Former President Donald Trump's indictment is just one step in a sprawling and complex investigation into the events of Jan. 6, 2021.

On that day, Trump's supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, injuring scores of law enforcement officers, forcing a panicked evacuation of the nation's political leaders and threatening the peaceful transfer of power after Trump lost the 2020 presidential election.

For more than two years, the Department of Justice has sifted through massive amounts of video footage and data. To date, it has charged over 1,000 people in what's become the largest criminal investigation in U.S. history.

Here's a by-the-numbers look at those cases so far:

• Number of people charged with federal crimes: 1,093
• Number of people who have pleaded guilty: 629
• Number of individuals who have had jury, bench or stipulated bench trials: 129
• The number with mixed verdicts: 40
• The number convicted on all charges: 87
• The number acquitted on all charges: 2
• Number of people sentenced: 586
• The percentage of people sentenced who have received prison time: 63
• The median sentence for those who received prison time, in days: 120
• The number of cases dismissed: 5 federal

➡️ Check out NPR's full database of Jan. 6 criminal cases.

J. Scott Applewhite

/

AP

Toward the end of his remarks on Tuesday, special counsel Jack Smith said he and his team would seek a "speedy trial."

He said the same thing after Donald Trump was charged with withholding and concealing classified and top secret documents at his Mar-a-Lago home.

When it came to deciding the timeline for that trial, prosecutors working with Smith pushed for an early trial date — they wanted to start as early as December.

The former president's lawyers asked for the trial to be delayed until late next year — until after the election.

In the end, the judge went with a trial date in May 2024, right at the tail end of the GOP primary, for which Trump is the front-runner.

Federal prosecutors are expecting Trump in his first court appearance as early as this week.

Trump has been summoned to appear at 4 p.m. on Thursday before Magistrate Judge Moxila A. Upadhyaya at the E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse in Washington, D.C.

But this case has been assigned to Judge Tanya S. Chutkan.

According to The Associated Press, Chutkan stood out for her tough punishment for Jan. 6 rioters. In at least seven cases examined by the AP, Chutkan imposed harsher penalties than what federal prosecutors sought for those rioters.

The AP wrote, "Chutkan, a former assistant public defender who was nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama, has consistently taken the hardest line against Jan. 6 defendants of any judge serving on Washington’s federal trial court, which is handling the more than 800 cases brought so far in the largest prosecution in Justice Department history."

Sue Ogrocki

/

AP

The Trump campaign sent out a call for donations on Tuesday to support his bid in the 2024 presidential election following the unsealing of his indictment. For a second time, the campaign accused the indictment of being election interference.

"And even after 3 indictments, I will continue to stand in their way, because the fate of our nation hangs in the balance in the 2024 election. It’s not just my freedom on the line, but yours as well – and I will NEVER let them take it from you," the email said.

The former president and GOP front-runner is already facing two trials next year in the middle of the election season.

Trump's previous calls for donations after criminal indictments in New York and Florida boosted his fundraising. But much of the money has gone to cover costs related to the legal challenges themselves, according to The Associated Press.

Logan Cyrus

/

AFP via Getty Images

It's too early to say when, exactly, this case might go to trial. But in all likelihood, the timing will coincide with the run-up to the 2024 presidential election in which Trump, the leading Republican primary contender, could face President Biden — the man whose 2020 election Trump is accused of subverting.

The logistics of juggling multiple trials will be messy for all involved.

In mid-July, a judge ruled that one of Trump's trials — the case related to withholding classified documents — will begin in Florida on May 20, 2024.

As NPR's Greg Allen reports, that's right at the tail of primary season. It's possible that Trump, who's currently leading in the polls, will have been named as the party's nominee by that time.

The former president's lawyers had been asking for the trial to be delayed until late next year — until after the election.

According to Allen's reporting, Trump lawyer Todd Blanche told Judge Aileen Cannon that his client deserved special consideration. "It is intellectually dishonest to stand up in front of this court and say this case is like any other," he said. "It is not."

But prosecutors working with special counsel Jack Smith had wanted an early trial date — as early as December. Prosecutor David Harbach said there was no reason Trump should receive special treatment.

"Mr. Trump is not the president, he's a private citizen indicted by a grand jury," Harbach said. Publicity surrounding Trump, he added, is "chronic and almost permanent."

In the end, Judge Cannon ruled to split the difference, with a date in May.

➡️ Read more about the judge's decision to set the trial date for May.

Special counsel Jack Smith took to the podium alone. Before a room of cameras and reporters, he delivered a two-minute statement, then left without taking questions.

"The attack on our nation's Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy. As described in the indictment, it was fueled by lies," Smith said. "Lies by the defendant, targeted at obstructing a bedrock function of the U.S. government."

While the manner and forum for this speech looked nearly identical to a statement Smith delivered after Trump was indicted on federal charges back in June, the tenor and tone of these remarks contained unmissable weightiness.

Smith spoke about the "men and women of law enforcement" who defended the Capitol, calling them heroes and patriots — and "the best among us."

Correction: A previous version of this story said special counsel Jack Smith last delivered remarks in May. He delivered them in June.

The federal indictment of Donald Trump for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election came soon after similar election interference charges were made public against a Trump ally in Michigan.

Matthew DePerno — the most recent Republican nominee for Michigan attorney general, who worked with Trump’s team to try to contest his 2020 loss in the state — was arraigned Tuesday on state charges for an alleged effort to unlawfully gain access to voting machines.

DePerno has been charged with undue possession of a voting machine, willfully damaging a voting machine and conspiracy, according to the special prosecutor investigating the case.

DePerno had sought to challenge the vote totals in Michigan’s Antrim County. The attorney was then endorsed by Trump in his unsuccessful bid for the state attorney general’s office in 2022.

A lawyer for DePerno said in a statement that his client “maintains his innocence” and that the charges are politically motivated. A former GOP state representative was also charged by the Michigan special prosecutor.

Two weeks ago, the state’s attorney general, Dana Nessel, announced charges against 16 people for serving as so-called fake electors following the 2020 presidential election. The electors signed documents falsely attesting that Trump won Michigan in the contest.

The fake elector scheme was a key narrative outlined in the federal indictment of Trump.

Investigations into election interference are ongoing elsewhere as well. Arizona’s Democratic attorney general is investigating the 2020 fake electors there, and a Georgia prosecutor is set to soon announce her long-awaited charging decisions in an investigation into efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election there.

Former President Donald Trump was not the only individual listed in the indictment filed Tuesday.

It lists six co-defendants that prosecutors say aided Trump in his attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election. These individuals weren't identified in the court documents available Tuesday evening, but they are described in the indictment as:

• An attorney "willing to spread knowingly false claims and pursue strategies" that Trump's 2020 election campaign attorneys wouldn't.
• An attorney who devised a plan to use former Vice President Mike Pence's ceremonial certification of election results in Congress to obstruct this process.
• A third attorney who privately said claims that the election was stolen was "crazy" but publicly amplified the disinformation.
• A Justice Department official who used the agency to open "sham election crime investigations" and influence state legislatures with knowingly false claims of election fraud.
• A fourth attorney who assisted in devising and implementing a plan to submit fake slates of presidential electors to obstruct the election certification process.
• And a political consultant who helped implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the election certification process.

The Trump campaign issued a formal statement just minutes after the indictment was made public, accusing the charges of being “election interference.”

“President Trump will not be deterred by disgraceful and unprecedented political targeting!” the statement reads.

The campaign reiterated accusations that the indictment is part of a witch hunt against him.

This is the latest indictment looming over the former president and current GOP front-runner for the 2024 presidential election.

He also faces separate federal charges over allegedly obstructing an investigation into classified documents at his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago. In addition to these federal charges, Trump is fighting criminal charges in Manhattan for his role in covering up hush money payments; a defamation lawsuit filed by E. Jean Carroll, the writer; and a grand jury investigation in Georgia over his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in that state.

Mandel Ngan

/

AFP via Getty Images

If the name Jack Smith rings a bell, it's likely that you read about him in connection with the other time his work led to the indictment of a former president: Smith's investigation into Trump's mishandling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.

Smith was tasked to oversee both that investigation and the Jan. 6 one that's making news today by Attorney General Merrick Garland.

In announcing Smith's appointment, Garland called Smith "the right choice to complete these matters in an even-handed and urgent manner." Smith is working with a group of experienced career prosecutors who have stressed their efforts to avoid even the appearance of politicization.

But that hasn't stopped Trump's Republican allies from repeatedly accusing him and the Justice Department of political bias toward the former president.

Former prosecutors praised Smith's handling of the last Trump indictment news cycle, with one former Justice Department prosecutor saying Smith's brief press statement on the charges "let the indictment speak for itself."

➡️ Read more about special counsel Jack Smith.

Special counsel Jack Smith is set to deliver a statement at around 6 p.m. this evening regarding the indictment against former President Donald Trump.

Smith, a former war crimes prosecutor, led the investigationinto Trump's refusal to return classified documents as well as aspects of the Jan. 6, 2021, siege on the U.S. Capitol.

Ed Jones

/

AFP

The former president now faces legal peril in three criminal cases — following March's indictment on 34 counts of falsifying business records and June's indictment on 37 counts of mishandling classified documents. Trump has pleaded not guilty in both cases.

A prosecutor in Fulton County, Ga., is leading a separate investigation into Trump's alleged efforts to pressure state election officials there. And Trump is also fighting two civil lawsuits, including a federal jury finding that left him liable for battery and defamation.

But this latest indictment stands apart from Trump's other legal challenges.

The DOJ's investigation into Jan. 6, 2021, is among the most sprawling and complex in U.S. history — it gets at the heart of the effort to overturn legitimate election results and obstruct the peaceful transfer of power, a pillar of American democracy.

➡️ Catch up on all of the trials and investigations Trump is facing.

Shortly before news of this indictment broke, Donald Trump took to the social media site that he owns, Truth Social, to disparage special counsel Jack Smith and the severity of these charges.

"I hear that Deranged Jack Smith, in order to interfere with the Presidential Election of 2024, will be putting out yet another Fake Indictment of your favorite President, me, at 5:00 P.M.," Trump wrote.

"Why didn’t they do this 2.5 years ago? Why did they wait so long? Because they wanted to put it right in the middle of my campaign. Prosecutorial Misconduct!"

For context: A grand jury in Washington, D.C., is the body that decided to indict Trump following a complex, years-long investigation. Trump's comments today, including his disparagement of special counsel Jack Smith, are consistent with how he's framed the last two indictments brought against him.

In a follow-up post, Trump again called the indictment "fake" and pointed to a "crooked Joe Biden SCANDAL," an apparent reference to an ongoing court case involving Biden's son, Hunter.

Jose Luis Magana

/

AP

Former President Trump has been indicted on federal charges stemming from his attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election, an effort that reached a bloody crescendo on Jan. 6, 2021, with his supporters attacking police and ransacking the U.S. Capitol.

The prosecution, which was part of special counsel Jack Smith's investigation, comes more than two years after the deadly attack on Congress as lawmakers were meeting to certify Joe Biden's Electoral College victory.

Trump was charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, witness tampering and conspiracy against the rights of citizens, and obstruction of an attempt to obstruct an official proceeding.

Tuesday’s development is the latest in a series of legal troubles that are likely to loom over next year’s presidential election. Trump is the front-runner among Republicans for his party’s nomination. He also faces separate federal charges over allegedly obstructing an investigation into classified documents at his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago.

In addition to these federal charges, Trump is fighting criminal charges over accounting for hush money payments in Manhattan; a defamation lawsuit filed by E. Jean Carroll, the writer; and a grand jury investigation in Georgia over his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in that state.

This indictment also injects even more uncertainty into the 2024 presidential race, in which Trump remains the Republican front-runner. He has vowed to continue his campaign despite the indictments.