Trump campaign releases statement following indictment
Donald Trump's 2024 presidential campaign organization accused the Biden administration of election interference following news of the former president's indictment Tuesday.
"This is nothing more than the latest corrupt chapter in the continued pathetic attempt by the Biden Crime Family and their weaponized Department of Justice to interfere with the 2024 Presidential Election, in which President Trump is the undisputed frontrunner, and leading by substantial margins," the campaign said in a statement. "These un-American witch hunts will fail and President Trump will be re-elected to the White House so he can save our Country from the abuse, incompetence, and corruption that is running through the veins of our Country at levels never seen before," the statement said.
5:45 p.m. ET, August 1, 2023
Read the indictment against former President Donald Trump
From CNN staff
A federal grand jury has indicted former President Donald Trump in special counsel Jack Smith's investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election leading up to the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.
Read the indictment here:
5:43 p.m. ET, August 1, 2023
Trump indicted on 4 counts, according to court document
From CNN's Tierney Sneed and Devan Cole
Former President Donald Trump has been indicted on four counts by a federal grand jury in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election leading up to the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, according to a court document.
The counts are:
Conspiracy to defraud the United States
Conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding
Obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding
and conspiracy against rights
The indictment is the second time in two months that Smith has brought charges against the former president.
In June, Trump was charged with the retention of classified documents and conspiracy with a top aide to hide them from the government and his own attorneys. And separately in March, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg indicted Trump on state charges of falsifying business records.
5:39 p.m. ET, August 1, 2023
JUST IN: Donald Trump has been indicted in special counsel’s 2020 election interference probe
From CNN's Tierney Sneed and Devan Cole
Former President Donald Trump has been indicted by a federal grand jury in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election leading up to the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, according to a court document.
The former president has been informed of his indictment, two sources tell CNN.
CNN's Kaitlan Collins and Alayna Treene contributed to this report.
5:20 p.m. ET, August 1, 2023
Judge seals indictment handed up by grand jury investigating 2020 election interference
From CNN's Holmes Lybrand
Homeland Security police officers park their patrol cars outside the Federal District Court, Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2023 in Washington, where a grand jury has been meeting in the probe led by special counsel Jack Smith into former President Donald Trump. Jose Luis Magana/AP
A judge agreed to seal the indictment returned by the grand jury hearing evidence in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
There was no information given in court about the number of defendants or the identity of any defendant.
The judge also approved a summons for the unidentified defendant or defendants to appear in court.
5:15 p.m. ET, August 1, 2023
JUST IN: Grand jury investigating 2020 election interference hands up indictment
From CNN's Tierney Sneed and Holmes Lybrand
News cameras sit in front of the E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. District Court House on August 01, 2023 in Washington, DC. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
The federal grand jury hearing evidence in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election handed up an indictment on Tuesday in the federal courthouse in Washington, DC.
The foreperson of the grand jury along with a Justice Department prosecutor were present in the courtroom when the indictment was returned.
5:10 p.m. ET, August 1, 2023
The Trump target letter cited 3 statutes that the former president could be charged with
From CNN's Jeremy Herb, Kristen Holmes, Kaitlan Collins, Paula Reid and Katelyn Polantz
Former President Donald Trump said in a social media post last month that he’s been informed by special counsel Jack Smith that he is a target of the criminal investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election, a sign he could soon be charged by the special counsel.
Trump’s attorneys, including Todd Blanche, received the target letter from Smith’s team informing them that their client could face charges in the investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election, two sources familiar with what happened tell CNN.
A target letter from federal prosecutors to Trump makes clear that prosecutors are focused on the former president’s actions in the investigation into overturning the 2020 election – and not just of those around him who tried to stop his election loss.
The target letter cites three statutes that Trump could be charged with, according to multiple news outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, that cited a person familiar with the matter. They include:
Pertaining to the deprivation of rights
Conspiracy to commit an offense against or defraud the United States
Tampering with a witness
The Justice Department has been known in the investigation to be examining possible violations of the law around conspiracy and obstruction of the congressional proceeding on January 6, which is part of the witness tampering law, CNN previously reported following a Justice Department search of a Trump administration adviser’s home.
Trump has already been indicted twice this year. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg charged the former president with falsifying business records in March, and Smith charged Trump in the classified documents investigation last month. Trump pleaded not guilty in both cases.
Key things to know about Jack Smith, the special counsel overseeing the Trump investigations
From CNN's Zachary Cohen, Kara Scannell, Jeremy Herb, Katelyn Polantz and Chandelis Duster
Jack Smith, the special counsel, delivers remarks about the indictment of former President Donald Trump in Washington, June 9, 2023. Kenny Holston/The New York Times/Redux
Attorney General Merrick Garland announced in November 2022 that Jack Smith would be the special counsel overseeing the criminal investigations into the retention of classified documents at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and parts of the January 6, 2021, insurrection.
Smith is a long-time prosecutor who has overseen a variety of high-profile cases during a career that spans decades. His experience ranges from prosecuting a sitting US senator to bringing cases against gang members who were ultimately convicted of murdering New York City police officers. In recent years, Smith has prosecuted war crimes at The Hague. His career in multiple parts of the Justice Department, as well as in international courts, has allowed him to keep a relatively low-profile in the oftentimes brassy legal industry.
In a statement following his announcement, Smith pledged to conduct the investigations “independently and in the best traditions of the Department of Justice.”
A career prosecutor: Smith began his career as an assistant district attorney with the New York County District Attorney’s Office in 1994. He worked in the Eastern District of New York in 1999 as an assistant US attorney, where he prosecuted cases including civil rights violations and police officers murdered by gangs, according to the Justice Department.
As a prosecutor in Brooklyn, New York, one of Smith’s biggest and most high-profile cases was prosecuting gang member Ronell Wilson for the murder of two New York City police department detectives during an undercover gun operation in Staten Island.
Wilson was convicted and sentenced to death, the first death penalty case in New York at the time in 50 years, though a judge later found he was ineligible for the death penalty.
Moe Fodeman, who worked with Smith at EDNY, called him “one of the best trial lawyers I have ever seen.”
“He is a phenomenal investigator; he leaves no stone unturned. He drills down to get to the true facts,” Fodeman said.
Fodeman, who is still friends with Smith, said he is a “literally insane” cyclist and triathlete.
Beginning in 2008, Smith worked for the International Criminal Court and oversaw war crimes investigations under the Office of the Prosecutor for two years.
In 2010, he became chief of the Public Integrity Section of the Justice Department, where he oversaw litigation of public corruption cases. Lanny Breuer, the former assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s Criminal Division who recruited Smith, said his onetime employee was “a terrific prosecutor” with a “real sense of fairness.”
How Trump's team is preparing for a potential indictment in the special counsel's 2020 election probe
From CNN's Alayna Treene
Former President Donald Trump and his advisers spent Monday and Tuesday morning preparing for a potential indictment to be filed in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Trump and his allies’ efforts to overturn the 2020 election, sources familiar with their plans tell CNN.
The Trump campaign has lined up surrogates, influencers and allies to immediately respond to new charges should they be filed, and have also prepared a series of pre-written statements and videos defending the former president's actions in the lead up to and on January 6, 2021, that they plan to send to supporters.
Trump is also expected to release a statement on Truth Social if he is informed of an indictment in the case, the sources said.
"We have a lot of products and content ready to go pushing back on the Jan. 6 stuff, not unlike what we've done before," a Trump adviser told CNN.
The Trump campaign is planning to lean into the playbook they've used with past indictments to frame any additional charges as interfering with his 2024 presidential campaign, as well as paint Smith as targeting Trump for purely political reasons — including allegations that the Justice Department is unfairly putting more focus on his behavior than that of President Joe Biden.
The former president has no scheduled media interviews on Tuesday. However, he is expected to publicly defend himself against any new charges during his campaign stops later this week.
