WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump was criminally charged Tuesday with illegally conspiring to overturn his election loss to President Joe Biden in 2020.
Trump was indicted on four federal felony charges that centered on his alleged efforts to discount legitimate votes in the 2020 presidential race and subvert the election itself.
The first charge alleges a conspiracy to defraud the U.S. "by using dishonesty, fraud and deceit to obstruct the nation's process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election," according to the Justice Department.
The second details "a conspiracy to impede" the Jan. 6, 2021, congressional proceeding where the election results were certified.
The third was "a conspiracy against the right to vote and to have that vote counted," said DOJ in a statement.
The charges mark the unprecedented third criminal indictment against the former president since he launched his latest bid for the 2024 Republican nomination. No other U.S. president, current or former, has ever faced criminal charges.
The election probe was led by special counsel Jack Smith, who also oversaw a separate investigation into Trump's retention of classified documents at his resort home Mar-a-Lago after leaving the White House in 2021.
Trump has pleaded not guilty in that case, which is set to go to trial in May.
Follow our live coverage of Trump's arraignment on four counts related to the 2020 election.
Key points:
- Trump fundraises off indictment moments after its release
- Special counsel has "contemporaneous notes" from Pence of Trump meetings
- DeSantis says he hasn't read Trump indictment, but claims the government was 'weaponized'
- Trump case assigned to Judge Tanya Chutkan, an Obama appointee
- Here are the four criminal charges Trump faces in new indictment
- Trump charged with trying to subvert 2020 election via 3 criminal conspiracies
- Read the full indictment against Trump