The 165-page election fraud indictment against Donald Trump, prepared by Special Counsel Jack Smith, was released on Wednesday, October 2. The document revealed the attorney's findings that Trump allegedly "resorted to crimes to stay in office."
A piece of the document asserted, among other shocking claims, that a member of the Trump campaign tried to tamper with the vote tallies at the TFC Center in Detroit, Michigan, during the 2020 presidential election.
According to CNN's Brianna Keilar, who read an excerpt from the indictment, "person 5" was a "campaign employee, agent, and coconspirator of the defendant" who reportedly "tried to sow confusion" during the counts.
"When a colleague at the TCF Center told person five, quote, ‘We think about your votes heavily in [Joe] Biden’s favor is right.’ Person five responded, ‘Find a reason it isn’t. Give me options to file litigation even if it is.’ When the colleague suggested that there was about to be unrest reminiscent of the Brooks Brothers riot, a violent effort to stop the vote count in Florida after the 2000 presidential election. Person five responded, ‘Make them riot and do it,’" Keilar read.
Before this, OK! Magazine reported that in August 2023, Trump was initially charged with trying to revoke the 2020 presidential election. The Supreme Court's decision that a president has "absolute immunity" for "official acts" undertaken as POTUS led to the submission of the superseding indictment in August 2024.
The remaining four counts—conspiracy to defraud the United States, impeding an official proceeding, obstruction of an attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights—were retained in the revised court case against Trump.
The newly disclosed legal papers state that Smith and his group contended that Trump's efforts to revoke the election were "private" rather than an "official act."
The defendant argues that his unlawful plot to annul the 2020 presidential election involved official action, which exempts him from prosecution. The petition states that the defendant's scheme was private, even if he was the president at the time of the alleged conspiracies.
The Constitution does not expressly delegate the federal government the responsibility to oversee state elections. Contrary to popular belief, according to the court proceedings, the President is not included in the constitutional framework's safeguards against electoral fraud.
After releasing the lengthy court document, Trump went on his Truth Social platform to criticize the most recent accusations, as per The New York Times.
"The release of this falsehood-ridden, Unconstitutional, J6 brief immediately following Tim Walz’s disastrous Debate performance, and 33 days before the Most Important Election in the History of our Country, is another obvious attempt by the Harris-Biden regime to undermine and Weaponize American Democracy, and INTERFERE IN THE 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION," he penned.
