NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- Former President Donald Trump foreshadowed the news himself late Tuesday afternoon that he would be criminally charged in connection to his attempts to reverse his loss to Joe Biden in 2020. And then news came down about 30 minutes later that he had been informed of a four-count indictment against him for efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
“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 favorite President, me, at 5:00 P.M.,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
This marks the third criminal indictment against the former president. No other U.S. president has ever faced criminal charges.
“A Nation In Decline!” Trump wrote in a subsequent post.
The latest charge centers on the Jan. 6 insurrection in Washington, D.C., that many believe was actively encouraged by Trump to bolster his fake claims of election rigging. The probe was led by special counsel Jack Smith, who also oversaw a separate investigation into classified documents stored at Mar-a-Lago after Trump left the White House.
Smith's indictment accuses Trump of three conspiracies: one to defraud the United States, a second to obstruct an official government proceeding and a third to deprive people of civil rights provided by federal law or the Constitution.
“Each of these conspiracies — which built on the widespread mistrust the defendant was creating through pervasive and destabilizing lies about election fraud — targeted a bedrock function of the United States federal government: the nation’s process of collecting, counting and certifying the results of the presidential election,” the indictment said.
The NY Times reported the indictment says Trump had six co-conspirators, but it did not name them.
Trump, GOP front-runner as the presidential nominee for 2024, now faces three court cases, with a fourth possibly brewing in Georgia over election interference allegations there. The first case was filed in April in New York on charges of falsifying business records in connection with a hush money payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. In June, Trump was charged with illegally holding on to boxes of classified documents at his Florida resort.
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