the Supreme Court\u2019s ruling on presidential immunity<\/a>.<\/p>\nFor example, the new indictment drops the claim that Trump tried to pressure justice department officials to work to overturn his defeat. The high court ruled that Trump\u2019s direction to justice officials was not illegal.<\/p>\n
The special counsel\u2019s office explained the reason for the new indictment in a statement on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe superseding indictment, which was presented to a new grand jury that had not previously heard evidence in this case, reflects the Government\u2019s efforts to respect and implement the Supreme Court\u2019s holdings and remand instructions in Trump v. United States,\u201d the office said.<\/p>\n
The justice department declined to comment further.<\/p>\n
The new charging document argues that Trump acted as a private citizen \u2013 and not as president \u2013 when he undertook the alleged scheme to sway the election.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Defendant had no official responsibilities related to the certification proceeding, but he did have a personal interest as a candidate in being named the winner of the election,\u201d reads one new line in the indictment.<\/p>\n
Another new line refers to a lawsuit filed by his campaign in Georgia. The old language said the suit was \u201cfiled in his name\u201d, but the new indictment says it was \u201cfiled in his capacity as a candidate for president\u201d.<\/p>\n
The new indictment also appears to have removed the charges against Jeffrey Clark \u2013 a former justice department official who played a key role in the so-called fake electors scheme, according to prosecutors.<\/p>\n
The fake electors scheme was an attempt to interfere in the Electoral College system that decides presidential elections. It centred on an attempt to persuade Republican-controlled state legislatures in seven states to select Republican electors or not name any electors in states that Mr Biden won.<\/p>\n
The falsified certificates were then transferred to the US Senate in an effort to have their votes counted in the place of the real electors, and overturn Mr Biden\u2019s win.<\/p>\n
Mr Clark was not named in either indictment, but has been identified in the media through public records.<\/p>\n
The new indictment leaves in place several key allegations against Trump, including that he attempted to persuade Vice-President Mike Pence to obstruct Mr Biden\u2019s election certification.<\/p>\n
In last month\u2019s Supreme Court ruling, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that any conversations between Trump and Mr Pence would probably fall under the category of official acts.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrump is at least presumptively immune from prosecution,\u201d he wrote, adding that it remains to be seen whether the government can rebut \u201cthat presumption of immunity\u201d.<\/p>\n
The new indictment shows that Mr Smith interpreted the US Supreme Court ruling to mean that his case could still move forward, said Daniel Charles Richman, a constitutional law expert at Columbia Law School.<\/p>\n
But whether it would satisfy the Supreme Court\u2019s presidential immunity framework remains unclear, the law professor said, as \u201cthe Court was painfully vague as to what private conduct done by a president can be charged criminally\u201d.<\/p>\n
The new indictment would not necessarily expedite the case, either, Mr Richman told the BBC. He doubted that it would be heard before the election.<\/p>\n
The CBS News source close to Trump\u2019s legal team said that the former president\u2019s lawyers would ask for more time to prepare for the case. They said it would likely delay the start of the trial if the judge agrees.<\/p>\n
This case came together after Mr Smith was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland in 2022 to oversee two federal investigations into Trump: The election interference case and another case accusing the ex-president of taking classified documents back to his Florida home after leaving office.<\/p>\n
On Monday, Mr Smith\u2019s team\u00a0appealed against a Florida judge\u2019s decision<\/a>\u00a0to dismiss the confidential documents case.<\/p>\n\u201cThe district court deviated from binding Supreme Court precedent, misconstrued the statutes that authorised the special counsel\u2019s appointment, and took inadequate account of the longstanding history of Attorney General appointments of special counsels,\u201d the special counsel\u2019s team wrote in their appeal.<\/p>\n
Both cases face uncertain futures after the Supreme Court\u2019s landmark decision last month.<\/p>\n
If Trump defeats Democrat Kamala Harris, he is widely expected to order the justice department to drop all the federal charges that he faces.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Aug 28 \u2013 US prosecutors have issued new charges against former President Donald Trump for his alleged attempts to interfere in the 2020 election after he lost to Joe Biden. They are in response to a US Supreme Court ruling last month that said presidents enjoy broad immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts while […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84053\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}