(Ken Silva, Headline USA) It looks like the Justice Department is still desperate to put Donald Trump behind bars.
Special counsel Jack Smith on Tuesday filed a new indictment against Trump that keeps the same criminal charges but narrows the allegations against him following a Supreme Court opinion conferring broad immunity on former presidents.
The new indictment removes a section of the indictment that accused Trump of trying to commandeer the DOJ in support of his efforts to challenge the election—an area for which the Supreme Court in a 6-3 opinion said Trump was entitled to immunity from prosecution.
Smith filed the new indictment after SCOTUS ruled last month that sitting presidents have “presumptive immunity” from prosecution. SCOTUS was deciding whether President Donald Trump and other presidents should be granted legal immunity from civil or criminal prosecution based on alleged offenses they committed while acting in the interest of the nation.
Smith and the DOJ seem to be putting their hopes in their case against Trump in Washington DC, which centers around the allegations that he tried to unlawfully challenge the results of the 2020 election.
In the DOJ’s separate case in Florida over Trump allegedly mishandling classified documents, a federal judge in Florida dismissed the charges against Trump last month, saying the appointment of Smith violated the Constitution. The DOJ has appealed that decision.
The case could be appealed and go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The basis for arguing that Smith was illegitimate was initially laid out in an amicus curiae brief by former Ronald Reagan attorney general Ed Meese that was filed with the Supreme Court for Trump v. U.S., the case considering Trump’s presidential immunity in Smith’s Washington, D.C., case.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
