After weeks of speculation regarding what would happen to Donald Trump ’s criminal indictments in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling, Special Counsel Jack Smith is sticking to his guns. On Tuesday, Smith’s office unveiled a superseding indictment against Trump relating to his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. It contains the same four charges leveled against him in August of last year: conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempting to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights.
Last month, the conservative-dominated Supreme Court ruled that presidents are entitled to immunity from prosecution for official acts committed while in office — a ruling that gave Trump a major win, as many observers believed it would directly threaten Smith’s ability to prosecute the case. The new indictment — crafted weeks after the ruling — slims down the allegations against the former president to focus on how his actions in the aftermath of the 2020 election broke from the established powers granted to the president in the Constitution. Prosecutors are now focusing on Trump’s private conduct, including his use of social media and campaign events as amplifiers for his election conspiracy theories.
“Throughout the conspiracies, although the defendant sometimes used his Twitter account to communicate with the public, as president, about offi.