A federal grand jury in Washington charged former President Donald Trump with conspiracy to defraud the United States and other counts Tuesday for his efforts to subvert the 2020 presidential election results in Pennsylvania and six other battleground states.
Here are some of the local highlights:
Subverting the Pennsylvania results
The four-count indictment unsealed accused Trump and six uncharged, unnamed coconspirators of a broad conspiracy to falsely claim the election results in Pennsylvania were fradulent and convince state legislators to overturn them. .
Specific steps listed in the indictment include:
· A Nov. 11, 2020, tweet in which Trump publicly maligned then-Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt for saying on TV news that there was no evidence of widespread fraud in Philadelphia. Schmidt, who is now the Pennsylvania Secretary of State, testified before the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol that he and his family later received death threats.
· A Nov. 25, 2020, hearing that State Sen. Doug Mastriano and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani convened in Gettysburg the day after certification of the state’s election results. At that hearing, Giuliani falsely claimed Pennsylvania had issued 1.8 million absentee ballots and received 2.5 million in return.
According to the indictment, a Trump campaign staffer later sent an internal message saying that Giuliani’s claims were “just wrong” and that “there’s no way to defend it.”
Trump’s deputy campaign manager responded: “We have been saying this for a while. It’s very frustrating,” .
· On Dec. 4, 2020, after Republican leadership in the Pennsylvania legislature issued a statement that they lacked authority to overturn the popular vote and appoint their own slate of electors, Trump retweeted a post labeling them cowards.
· Trump repeatedly raised allegations with Justice Department officials that there were 205,000 more votes than voters in Pennsylvania. Each time, they informed him that claim was false.
· On Jan. 6, as rioters stormed the Capitol building, Trump publicly repeated that false claim .
Conspirators with Pennsylvania ties
The indictment does not name Trump’s alleged coconspirators, but one is identifiable as Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official who grew up in Northeast Philadelphia and graduated from Father Judge High School in 1985.
The charging document describes him as a DOJ official who “worked on civil matters” and, along with Trump, “attempted to use the Justice Department to open sham election crime investigations and influence state legislatures with knowingly false claims of election fraud.”
The Jan. 6 congressional committee previously documented Clark’s efforts in the fake elector scheme.
The indictment cites a draft letter Clark proposed sending to state officials in Georgia that said the legislature there should appoint pro-Trump electors.
Senior DOJ officials under Trump have testified to Congress that they threatened to resign amid Trump’s plan to appoint Clark acting attorney general, at which point the plan fizzled out.
Neither Clark nor any of Trump’s other alleged coconspirators have been officially accused of wrongdoing.
Clark left Philadelphia soon after high school and went on to receive advanced degrees from Harvard and Georgetown. He spent most of his career practicing environmental law in Washington. Only after the 2020 election did he become a key Trump ally.
Swift reaction to the indictment
Both Trump and Attorney General Merrick Garland were in Pennsylvania in the days surrounding the unsealing of the indictment against the former president.
Trump, speaking at a campaign rally in Erie on Saturday, told the crowd of more than 4,000 people that the latest criminal charges are a part of what he described as an ongoing “witch hunt” to block him from winning another election. He railed against elected Republicans who he said aren’t doing enough to defend him.
“They impeach me. They indict me. They rig our elections,” he said. “And the Republicans just don’t fight the way … they’re supposed to fight.”
Garland, meanwhile, participating in a previously scheduled community event Tuesday night to celebration National Night Out in North Philadelphia, addressed reporters briefly. He did not comment on the contents of the indictment but praised special counsel Jack Smith and his team.
“Mr. Smith and his team are experienced, principled career agents and prosecutors — can follow the facts and the law wherever they lead,” he said. “Any questions about this matter will have to be answered by the filings made in court.”
Staff writer Gillian McGoldrick contributed to this article.