(WASHINGTON) — Special counsel Jack Smith on Tuesday filed a new indictment against Donald Trump for his attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. The charges remain the same, but the accusations against him are narrower following a recent Supreme Court ruling on former presidents’ immunity from prosecution.
The new indictment no longer includes a section addressing Trump’s interactions with the Justice Department, an area where the Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision last month, declared that Trump was entitled to immunity.
The indictment also removes Jeffrey Clark, a Justice Department official who backed Trump’s false claims of election fraud, as a co-conspirator. While the names of Trump’s co-conspirators remain undisclosed in the indictment, they have been identified through public records and other sources.
The special counsel’s office stated that the revised indictment, filed in federal court in Washington, was issued by a grand jury that had not previously examined evidence in the case.
The indictment still maintains the allegations that Trump tried to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence into rejecting the certification of the electoral vote count. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court that the interactions between Trump and Pence constituted official conduct, making “Trump at least presumptively immune from prosecution.”
The question, Roberts wrote, is whether the government can overturn “that presumption of immunity.”
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Associated Press writer Mark Sherman in Washington contributed to this report.