Special counsel Jack Smith on Tuesday filed a new indictment against Donald Trump over his efforts to undo the 2020 presidential election that keeps the same criminal charges but narrows the allegations against him following a Supreme Court opinion conferring broad immunity on former presidents.
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00:00Former President Donald Trump is charged in a new indictment by special counsel Jack Smith related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
00:08This new indictment still keeps intact the same original four charges, however, it narrows the allegations against him.
00:15And that's because the Supreme Court in an opinion last month conferred broad immunity on former presidents.
00:22And it said that one element of the indictment in particular, namely Donald Trump's interactions with the Justice Department,
00:30his efforts to involve the department in trying to overturn his election loss.
00:35The Supreme Court said all of that is conduct for which Trump is entitled to absolute immunity because that is conduct that constitutes an official act.
00:44And so what the special counsel's office has done is get a new grand jury to issue a new indictment that removes from the original charging document
00:55all of the allegations that relate to the Justice Department.
00:59So this doesn't really change anything vis-a-vis the timing, but it represents the government's first effort to conform and comply with the Supreme Court's opinion.
01:08But we are still looking at an impossible scenario of a trial taking place in 2024.
01:14That's really off the table given the work that's still ahead to narrow the indictment still even further and determine what is an official act and what is not an official act.