Special counsel Jack Smith filed an updated indictment against Donald Trump in a bid to salvage and strengthen the historic election obstruction case after a Supreme Court ruling that granted broad immunity to presidents for official acts and sharply criticized the prosecutor’s approach. The superseding indictment comes as a critical window was closing for Smith. In about 10 days, a Justice Department policy known as “the 60-day rule” will take effect forestalling any new filing of charges against the former president before the November election. Smith told the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that the indictment was filed “by a new grand jury that had not previously heard evidence in this case” and that it “reflects the Government’s efforts to respect and implement the Supreme Court’s holdings and remand instructions,” the Washington Post reports.
Trump faces the same four charges related to his alleged attempts to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory. Smith said he will not seek to have Trump arraigned again on the new version of the indictment and expects to make a joint proposal with the former president’s defense lawyers this week about how to schedule new pretrial hearings. Trump posted on social media that the special counsel was trying to “resurrect a ‘dead’ Witch Hunt in Washington, D.C., in an act of desperation.” He declared the superseding indictment “ridiculous” and called for it to be dismissed as an attempt to interfere with the November election. The original 45-page indictment has been reduced to 36 pages, after prosecutors removed allegations that the Supreme Court supermajority said were wrongly filed. Specifically, those allegations related to an effort by Trump in late 2020 to make the Justice Department support his false claims of voter fraud. Even a whittled-down indictment could end up the subject of protracted fights between the special counsel and Trump’s attorneys about what is allowed to be charged, or used as evidence. The issues may once again have to be settled by the Supreme Court.
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