Former President Donald Trump and one of his attorneys have invoked a First Amendment defense in response to the federal indictment charging Trump with trying to “subvert the legitimate election results.” But legal experts note Trump’s speech isn’t constitutionally protected if he engaged in a criminal conspiracy, as the indictment alleges.
In an interview hours after former President Donald Trump was indicted for an alleged conspiracy to overturn the 2020 presidential election, one of his attorneys said that all Trump had ultimately asked his vice president to do was “simply pause” the Electoral College count at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Former Vice President Mike Pence called that claim “completely false.”
The federal indictment against former President Donald Trump, concerning his efforts to remain in office despite losing the election, details actions Trump and his co-conspirators allegedly took to get state officials to change legitimate electoral votes. The indictment says the pressure campaign involved knowingly making false claims of voter fraud — many of which we’ve written about before.
On Aug. 1, the Department of Justice filed an indictment against former President Donald Trump concerning his attempts to remain in power despite losing the 2020 presidential election — efforts that culminated in obstructing the counting of electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021, the indictment charges.
In an interview with Fox News, former President Donald Trump denied showing a classified plan of a U.S. attack on Iran when he met in July 2021 with four people who lacked security clearances — contrary to an audio transcript of Trump contained in the 37-count federal indictment against him.
The latest ad from the anti-Trump Lincoln Project promotes the same mistaken argument that Donald Trump himself has made — that the former president has been charged with spying or espionage. Trump was charged under a part of the Espionage Act concerning the willful retention of national defense information. That’s different from spying.
In the days leading up to his June 13 arraignment and in a speech several hours afterward, former President Donald Trump distorted what the federal indictment against him said and made faulty comparisons to other politicians’ actions.
On June 9, the Department of Justice unsealed a 44-page indictment against former President Donald Trump detailing allegations not only of mishandling sensitive classified documents after he left office, but of obstructing federal officials who tried to get them back. Here, we answer some questions about the indictment.
The unsealed 16-page indictment against Donald Trump accuses the former president of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, but it is the accompanying 13-page “Statement of Facts” released by the Manhattan district attorney that gets to the heart of the case.
We answer some questions about the events leading up to the criminal indictment of former President Donald Trump.