Special counsel Jack Smith brought a superseding indictment against Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, charging the same four felonies he did one year ago over allegations the former president illegally attempted to overturn the 2020 election.
The indictment is slightly shorter than the previous one Smith brought last August, as the special counsel excised portions of it after the Supreme Court ruled in July that some of the initial indictment included activity protected by presidential immunity.
The superseding indictment “reflects the Government’s efforts to respect and implement the Supreme Court’s holdings and remand instructions in Trump v. United States,” prosecutors with Smith’s team wrote in the 36-page document.
Prosecutors said the grand jury that heard evidence for the new indictment was different from the last grand jury and “had not previously heard evidence in the case.”
The move by Smith is a sign that the special counsel is not backing down from criminally charging Trump in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision, which legal experts widely suspected would derail Smith’s case.
The Supreme Court ruled on July 1 in a landmark decision that some presidential activity is always protected from criminal prosecution, and as an added challenge for prosecutors, the high court also said criminal cases cannot involve evidence against presidents or former presidents related to their official job duties.
Smith’s new indictment, for example, followed the Supreme Court’s instructions to remove references to Trump’s communication with his Department of Justice.
Smith alleged in the initial indictment that former Department of Justice official Jeff Clark was one of six unnamed co-conspirators in the case and that Clark opened “sham election crime investigations” at the behest of Trump and against DOJ leadership’s wishes. Prosecutors dropped Clark as a co-conspirator and removed mentions of Trump’s interactions with him.
Smith left the five other unnamed co-conspirators, whose descriptions match those of lawyers who helped Trump challenge the 2020 election results, including Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Sidney Powell, and Kenneth Chesebro.
Smith also added a new description of Trump’s infamous remarks on Jan. 6, 2021, calling it a “Campaign speech” in an attempt to distance it from an official presidential speech. During the speech, the then-president claimed the 2020 election had been stolen. Subsequently, hundreds of his supporters riotously charged into restricted parts of the U.S. Capitol, which Smith argues Trump caused.
Armed with the favorable Supreme Court opinion, Trump is likely to raise significant challenges to Smith’s superseding indictment based on the high court’s newly outlined definition of presidential immunity.
Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche indicated as much in a radio interview last month, when he said the “entire indictment” brought by Smith in Washington was “based off of immunized communications and conduct.”
Judge Tanya Chutkan set a hearing in the case for Sept. 5, and both parties must file a status report by Friday in anticipation of the hearing. The hearing will largely address the case’s new schedule after it was dormant for months while the immunity question was pending before the Supreme Court.
Despite the case’s revival, Trump will have new avenues to raise challenges to Smith’s charges, meaning a trial in the case most likely would not occur until long after the election.
Asked for comment, the Trump campaign pointed to a string of social media posts the former president fired off in the wake of Smith filing the indictment.
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Trump wrote that the indictment was “an act of desperation” and an attempt by Smith to “save face.” It “should be dismissed IMMEDIATELY,” Trump wrote.
“This is merely an attempt to INTERFERE WITH THE ELECTION, and distract the American People from the catastrophes Kamala Harris has inflicted on our Nation, like the Border Invasion, Migrant Crime, Rampant Inflation, the threat of World War III, and more,” Trump wrote.
Read the superseding indictment below:
