Donald Trump has been indicted for an astonishing third time – prompting him to rage the attorney heading the cases against him was “deranged”.
Donald Trump has been indicted for an astonishing third time – prompting him to rage the attorney heading the cases against him was ‘deranged‘
The scandal-plagued former US president, 77, is now facing four counts in connection to his involvement in the events of January 6, 2021, including conspiracy to defraud the American government and obstruct the electoral count for trying to overturn the 2020 election.
The 45-page indictment states the former ‘Apprentice’ judge was “determined to remain in power” despite having “lost” his leadership.
A sealed indictment was delivered to a Washington D.C.-based judge on Tuesday (01.08.23) containing the four felony counts against the former president.
If found guilty of all four counts, Trump faces a maximum combined sentence of 55 years behind bars.
He is expected to be arraigned on Thursday (03.08.23) in Washington DC district court in front of Magistrate Judge Moxila A Upadhyaya.
The indictment papers also references six unnamed and unindicted co-conspirators.
It says: “The Defendant and co-conspirators used knowingly false claims of election fraud to get state legislators and election officials to subvert the legitimate election results and change electoral votes for the Defendant’s opponent, Joseph R Biden, Jr, to electoral votes for the Defendant.”
Trump railed against the news of his third potential indictment on his Truth Social platform shortly before 5pm – branding the investigating US attorney in the case Jack Smith “deranged”.
He ranted: “I hear that Deranged Jack Smith, in order to interfere with the Presidential Election of 2024, will be putting out yet another Fake Indictment of your favourite President, me, at 5:00 P.M.
“Why didn’t they do this 2.5 years ago? Why did they wait so long? Because they wanted to put it right in the middle of my campaign. Prosecutorial Misconduct!”
Trump has denied his involvement in the events of 6 January that saw Trump’s supporters storm the Capitol Building in Washington D.C., leaving five people dead and others injured.
US District Judge Tanya S Chutkan has been assigned to the case.
Trump is also currently facing federal charges in Florida stemming from his mishandling of classified docs after he left office.
He allegedly asked a staffer to delete camera footage at Mar-A-Lago following claims he illegally stashed hundreds of secret documents at the estate.
Trump pled not guilty in a Miami federal court in June to 37 felony counts against him and is set to face trial in May next year.
He could face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison if he’s found guilty of obstruction in relation to the security camera footage.
Trump made history in April when he became the first US president to be charged with a crime after leaving office, when the Manhattan district attorney’s office indicted him on charges related to hush money payments he made prior to the 2016 election.
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