Trump Indicted for Conspiring to Overturn the 2020 Election

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I split this off from the 2020 election thread. I'll adjust the title when we know more.

Jack Smith is supposedly going to make a statement?



https://www.c-span.org/video/?529681-1/ ... -statement

[N.E. Brigand]

Kyle Cheney writes:

"UPDATE: It’s happening. Prosecutors have entered the courtroom and a new 'grand jury returns' has been added to the docket."

[Voronwë the Faithful]

He adds: "UPDATE: Molly Gaston, a prosecutor detailed to the special counsel, handed up a single sealed indictment and received permission to issue a summons. No names or initials provided."



C-Span still says "Statement from Special Counsel Jack Smith shortly" but they are playing on a loop an interview from earlier about drug prices.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

And Harry LItman: Grand Jury returns an indictment against, as of now, an "unnamed individual or individuals."

[Voronwë the Faithful]

And Kyle Griffin (I always get the Kyles confused):

"BREAKING: A sealed indictment has just been delivered to a D.C.-based magistrate judge that *did not* include any names.

It was presented to the judge by an individual believed to be the foreman of the grand jury investigating Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election."



Anna Bower:
"The judge did not provide a name or initials of the defendant, likely because the government requested that the document be sealed.

The judge also directed that a summons be issued, per DOJ’s request."



We may or may not learn anything more today. I don't know if CSpan is right about Jack Smith making a statement.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Brad Heath: "A new sealed criminal case appeared on the DC federal court docket within the past few minutes. It's No. 23-cr-257."

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Asha Rangappa again.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

And here it is.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Surprisingly, Trump is the only defendant.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Case assigned to Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, an Obama appointee.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Six unnamed co-conspirators:

a. Co-Conspirator 1, an attorney who was willing to spread knowingly false
claims and pursue strategies that the Defendant's 2020 re-election campaign
attorneys would not.
b. Co-Conspirator 2, an attorney who devised and attempted to implement a
strategy to leverage the Vice President's ceremonial role overseeing the certification proceeding to obstruct the certification of the presidential
election.
c. Co-Conspirator 3, an attorney whose unfounded claims of election fraud the
Defendant privately acknowledged to others sounded "crazy." Nonetheless,
the Defendant embraced and publicly amplified Co-Conspirator 3 's
disinformation.
d. Co-Conspirator 4, a Justice Department official who worked on civil
matters and who, with the Defendant, attempted to use the Justice
Department to open sham election crime investigations and influence state
legislatures with knowingly false claims of election fraud.
e. Co-Conspirator 5, an attorney who assisted in devising and attempting to
implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to
obstruct the certification proceeding.
f. Co-Conspirator 6, a political consultant who helped implement a plan to
submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification
proceeding.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

You can read the indictment here.

https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/tr ... ith-jan.-6

This is a truly historic day.

[N.E. Brigand]

Jack Smith will make a two-minute statement and won't take questions. (Nothing surprising about that.)

[N.E. Brigand]

Donald Trump has been summoned to appear at the D.C. courthouse on Thursday at 4 p.m.

[N.E. Brigand]

"The attack on our nation's Capitol on January 6, 2021 was an unprecedent assault on American democracy ... fueled by lies told by the defendant".

[Voronwë the Faithful]

[N.E. Brigand]

I think some kudos may be due to Seth Abramson because, as I recall, he was arguing pretty early on that, contra claims that President Trump merely considered appointing Jeffrey Clark to the role of Acting Attorney General, as see, e.g., the summary of that incident in Wikipedia:

Attempted appointment as Acting Attorney General

Also in January, Trump considered replacing Rosen with Clark, because he was disappointed that Rosen would not support his unsupported claims of fraud, while Clark had worked on ways to cast doubt on, or even overturn, the election results. Trump expected that if Clark became acting attorney general, he would reverse the decisions of previous attorneys general and publicly declare that DOJ had serious concerns about the election results. In particular he would open an investigation into supposed election fraud tainting the Georgia election, the results of which would compel Georgia officials to void Biden's win in that state. When Clark told Rosen that Trump intended to appoint him to replace Rosen, the Department's remaining senior leaders -– including Donoghue and Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel Steven Engel – agreed they would all resign if Rosen was removed. After Rosen and Clark presented their arguments to Trump in a White House meeting, Trump decided not to pursue the option.

Clark denied that he had plotted to replace Rosen, who had mentored Clark when both worked at the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis, or that he recommended any action based on inaccurate material. He added that he could not discuss any conversations he had with Trump or with Justice Department lawyers because of legal privilege. Clark further noted that he had been the lead signatory on the Justice Department's letter opposing a claim that Vice President Mike Pence had the power to reject electoral votes for Biden when Congress met to certify the result.

Clark's alleged cooperation with Trump to remove Rosen and to use the Justice Department's power to alter Georgia's election results was met with surprise by many of Clark's friends, colleagues, and acquaintances, who had previously viewed him as an "establishment lawyer" rather than a part of the "Trumpist faction of the party."

On December 14, 2021, the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack released the contents of a text message dated Sunday, January 3 from an unknown person to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows which read: "I heard Jeff Clark is getting put in on Monday. That's amazing. It will make a lot of patriots happy and I'm personally so proud that you are at the tip of the spear and I can call you a friend."

...that all the evidence indicated that Trump did effectively appoint Clark to that role. And the indictment says that's what happened: Clark "accepted the Defendant's offer that he become the Acting Attorney General."

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Regardless of what Wikipedia says, that was long known, including by the January 6th committee.

[N.E. Brigand]

Regardless of what Wikipedia says, that was long known, including by the January 6th committee.

Ah sorry, I guess I had missed that. Kyle Cheney seemed to treat it as new information tonight.

[N.E. Brigand]

The international credit ratings agency Fitch today downgraded the United States's credit rating from AAA to AA+, which may cost the U.S. economy billions of dollars.

Why am I posting this here? Because Fitch says that one key reason is that the events of January 6th -- whose effects apparently took Fitch more than three years to analyze -- undermine the nation's stability and thus that of its finances. (The repeated debt limit standoffs, which in my opinion have been driven entirely by the actions of Republican lawmakers, also played a role in Fitch's decision.) U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says that Fitch's decision is arbitrary and outdated, and based on previous statements from Fitch about what would merit a downgrade, I think she makes a good point.