WASHINGTON (AP) — Special counsel Jack Smith on Tuesday filed a new criminal complaint against Donald Trump over his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. The charges remain the same but the allegations against him are limited after a Supreme Court ruling granted broad immunity to former presidents.
The new indictment removes a portion of the charges that focused on Trump’s interactions with the Justice Department. The Supreme Court ruled last month in a 6-3 vote that Trump was entitled to immunity from prosecution.
The updated criminal complaint no longer names Jeffrey Clark, a Justice Department official who defended Trump’s false claims of election fraud, as an accomplice. Trump’s accomplices were not named in either indictment, but they have been identified through public records and other means.
The special counsel’s office said the updated indictment, filed in federal court in Washington, was issued by a grand jury that had not previously heard evidence in the case.
The indictment preserved allegations that Trump tried to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence into refusing to certify the electoral vote count. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court that the interactions between Trump and Pence amounted to official conduct for which “Trump is at least presumptively immune from prosecution.”
The question, Roberts wrote, is whether the government can rebut “that presumption of immunity.”
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Mark Sherman, an Associated Press editor in Washington, contributed to this report.
