WASHINGTON (NBC News) — Former President Donald Trump has once again been indicted over his efforts to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss, an effort which culminated in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
A federal grand jury on Tuesday returned a superseding indictment that charges the former president with the same four counts he faced in the original indictment last August: conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights.
The superseding indictment was returned following the Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity last month, which barred the government from using certain “official acts” taken by Trump in his role as president in their prosecution.
“The superseding indictment, which was presented to a new grand jury that had not previously heard evidence in this case, reflects the Government’s efforts to respect and implement the Supreme Court’s holdings and remand instructions,” the special counsel said in a filing.
Once again, the indictment takes the position that Trump didn’t actually believe the lies he was spreading in the wake of his 2020 election loss, and that he knew that they were, in fact, lies.
“These claims were unsupported, objectively unreasonable, and ever-changing, and the Defendant and his co-conspirators repeated them even after they were publicly disproven,” the indictment states. “These claims were false, and the Defendant knew that they were false.”
While many Jan. 6 defendants have told courts that they now recognize they were tricked and lament that they were “gullible” enough to fall for the misinformation about the 2020 election that Trump promoted, Trump himself has never publicly admitted that he realizes he was spreading misinformation.
Trump’s state of mind will be a major issue at a future trial, which won’t take place before Election Day and could be complicated if he wins. If Trump is victorious, he or his appointees would almost certainly kill the case as well as other Jan. 6 prosecutions: Trump has referred to Capitol rioters as “hostages” and “unbelievable patriots” and has indicated he’ll pardon many if not all Jan. 6 defendants. (Trump said he’d “absolutely” consider pardoning every single Jan. 6 criminal defendant, but his campaign has said pardons would be done on a case-by-case basis.)
The Trump attorneys handling the election interference superseding indictment told NBC News they are reviewing the new superseding indictment.
