The special counsel’s office made sure to avoid the U.S. Supreme Court’s attempt to kill their Jan. 6 prosecution by filing a superseding charge on Tuesday. They plan to quickly bring their case against former president Donald Trump back to life.
On the other hand, Jack Smith used the chance to warn some of the 45th president’s accused accomplices.
While the new filing doesn’t include any of the earlier references to clearly forbidden topics, the nation’s high court said that these topics and discussions are covered by the new and broad legal concept of post-presidential immunity for criminal acts that they made in July.
In the beginning of the new accusation, Smith tries to clear the way so that the defendant can’t use “official acts” as an excuse. He also wants to send a message to the other people accused of conspiring with the defendant that the Supreme Court’s decision is not for them.
As you might expect, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan will decide if the special counsel’s points actually help the government. Other courts will also likely take a second or third look at the case in the future.
“The following people were also involved in the plots; none of them worked for the government during the plots; they were all acting in their personal capacities,” the new charge says.
The indictment then names four “private” lawyers and one “private political consultant,” but it strangely leaves out any Justice Department employees who might have been involved in the plot.
It’s true that Smith and his office are very good at leaving out details about Trump’s conversations and meetings with people in the “Justice Department.”
It looks like these deletions were made to match a part of the Supreme Court’s decision on immunity that says, “Trump is therefore absolutely immune from prosecution for the alleged conduct involving his discussions with Justice Department officials.”
People who used to work for the DOJ may not be thinking about Smith’s possible subpoenas anymore, but the prosecutor keeps dropping and dangling a few more dirty hints to people close to Trump.
According to the new charge, the defendant kept lying all the way through the certification hearing on January 6. “That morning, the Defendant gave a Campaign speech at a political rally on the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., that was privately funded and privately organized.”
Defendant told many of the same lies during the speech that were not backed by evidence, were irrational, and had been proven false in public. He did this to encourage the crowd to march to the Capitol.
Mark Meadows, who was Trump’s chief of staff at the time, is mentioned in the superseding indictment in the following heavily changed (added to) section about attempts to rig the Georgia election:
On January 2, four days before Congress’s certification proceeding, the Defendant, his Chief of Staff-who sometimes handled private and others called Campaign-related logistics for the Defendant-and private attorneys involved in the lawsuit against Georgia’s Secretary of State called the Secretary of State.
Once more, the changes to the indictment seem to be about how the services and actions were supposedly “private.”
The new grand jury’s post-immunity indictment is nine pages shorter than the first indictment, which was filed on August 1, 2023. This is true even though the government added a few important details to their story.
In a way that seems to be in line with the Supreme Court’s decision, the new indictment throws out most of pages 9–11 and 23 of the original charge.
The charges against Trump are the same as they were before: plot to defraud the United States, obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, and obstruction of an official proceeding. Trump is also accused of conspiracy against the right to vote and its counting.