Trump to appear in court under charges of plotting to overturn 2020 Election

Washington [US], August 4 (ANI): Former US president Donald Trump returned to Washington on Thursday (local time), two and a half years after he lost elections after a single term in the White House. Trump is to face charges that he illegally attempted to overturn the 2020 election to stay in power, Voice of America (VOA) reported.

The case in Washington is the third indictment filed against Trump in the last four months and the most all-encompassing, accusing him of attempting to undermine the peaceful transfer of power from one president to the next, one of the central tenets of US democracy.

It accuses him of orchestrating a plan to retain power even though aides repeatedly told him he had lost the election and there was no proof of substantial fraud that would have changed the outcome, as he claimed then and does to this day, VOA reported.

The indictment accused Trump of spreading lies that “there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won. These claims were false, and the Defendant knew that they were false.”

“He deliberately disregarded the truth,” the indictment alleged.

The indictment, in sum, accused him of targeting “a bedrock function of the United States federal government: the nation’s process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election.”

Trump has denied all wrongdoing in the array of allegations he is facing. He has been summoned to appear at the US Courthouse for arraignment on a four-count election conspiracy indictment filed against him Tuesday by Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith, VOA reported.

Trump is expected to be fingerprinted at his booking but as a universally recognized person, not have a mug shot taken. The 77-year-old ex-president will have to answer routine questions that include personal details about himself.

Then Trump will appear before US Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya for his arraignment, most likely pleading not guilty to the felony charges which, if he is convicted, could land him in prison for years, VOA reported.

US District Judge Tanya Chutkan was randomly assigned to oversee Trump’s trial, which could be months away.

In a fiery fundraising email, the former president assailed his rival, President Joe Biden, for overseeing “a dystopian Third World dictatorship that has only temporarily taken control of our once great and free Republic.”

Trump is the first US president, in office or after his term, in the country’s 247-year history to face criminal charges, VOA reported.

Security was tightened around the US courthouse in Washington, with some streets closed to traffic and large trucks with plough blades positioned bumper to bumper to block entryways in the event any troublemakers appear. Dozens of officers stood guard in the area. Tow trucks were removing parked cars.

The courthouse is located just blocks from the US Capitol, near where Trump on January 6, 2021, urged thousands of his supporters to go and “fight like hell” to prevent lawmakers from certifying that Biden had won the election, VOA reported.

About 2,000 rioters rampaged into the Capitol building that day, clashing with police, ransacking congressional offices and delaying the final votes in the Electoral College showing that Biden had won until the early hours of January 7. Trump, to no avail, had demanded that then-Vice President Mike Pence, presiding over the Electoral College vote count, block the outcome to keep them in power.

More than 1,000 rioters have been charged with offences stemming from the unrest. In the same courthouse where Trump is being arraigned Thursday, about 700 of them have been convicted and more than 560 sentenced to terms of up to 18 years in prison.

Despite the growing number of criminal charges Trump is facing, he is far and away the leading Republican contender for the party’s 2024 presidential nomination and could again face Biden, the Democrat who defeated him in 2020 and replaced Trump as president in early 2021.

Trump is also facing a state trial in New York in March 2024 on charges that he altered business records at his real-estate conglomerate to hide a USD 130,000 hush money payment to a porn film performer ahead of his successful 2016 run for the presidency to silence her claim that she had a one-night tryst with Trump a decade earlier. Trump has denied the affair occurred, VOA reported.

In another case, Smith indicted Trump on charges that he illegally retained 32 highly classified national security documents at his oceanside Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida after he left office in early 2021 and then conspired with a personal aide to keep from having to hand them over to federal investigators who had subpoenaed them. That trial is set for next May.