German Lopez and Ian Prasad Philbrick at NYT:
(You can read the full indictment, annotated by Times reporters, here.)
“The attack on our nation’s Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy,” Jack Smith, the special counsel who led the Justice Department investigation in the case, said yesterday. “It was fueled by lies — lies by the defendant targeted at obstructing a bedrock function of the U.S. government: the nation’s process of collecting, counting and certifying the results of the presidential election.”
In a statement, Trump called the new charges “election interference” and compared the Biden administration to Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
What’s new
Much of the indictment builds on the work of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack. But the indictment also presents some new information. Examples include:
Trump tried repeatedly to persuade Mike Pence that the vice president had the power to overturn the election results in Congress. When Pence said that he did not believe he had that authority, Trump allegedly responded, “You’re too honest.”
The indictment said that Trump had six co-conspirators, but it did not name them. The Times reported several likely candidates, including the former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark and lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell. Prosecutors could charge co-conspirators in the coming weeks.
A deputy White House counsel warned one alleged co-conspirator, believed to be Clark, that if Trump tried to stay in office, there would be “riots in every major city in the United States.” That co-conspirator’s response seemed to suggest that Trump could use his power as commander in chief to crush the protests: “That’s why there’s an Insurrection Act.”
