Federal prosecution of Donald Trump (election obstruction case)
Trump plead not guilty for having attempted to overturn the results of the election through a plot in which pro-Trump slates of fake electors would be created. Trump pressured then-vice president Mike Pence to count the fake electors instead of the electors certified by state governments. The Department of Justice opened an investigation in January 2022 into the plot, expanding it to encompass January6, 2021. In November 2022, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Jack Smith to lead a special counsel investigation encompassing the investigations into attempts to overturn the election and Trump's handling of government documents.
On August1, 2023, a grand jury indicted Trump in the District of Columbia U.S. District Court on four charges for his conduct following the 2020 presidential election through the January6 Capitol attack: conspiracy to defraud the United States under Title 18 of the United States Code, obstructing an official proceeding and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding under the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002, and conspiracy against rights under the Enforcement Act of 1870. The indictment mentioned six unnamed co-conspirators. It is Trump's third indictment and the first indictment against a U.S. president concerning actions while in office. Trump appeared at an arraignment on August3, 2023, where he pleaded not guilty. The charge with the longest sentence carries a maximum of 20 years in prison.
On February2, 2024, Judge Tanya Chutkan said she would not schedule a trial until the DC Circuit Court of Appeals decided whether Trump was immune from prosecution. After that court unanimously ruled that Trump was not immune, Trump appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled on July 1 that former presidents have "some immunity from criminal prosecution" for their "official acts" made during their presidency. As a result, on August 27, the special counsel issued a superseding indictment that maintained the same four charges but omitted some specific allegations.
Following the election of Trump and his current Vice President JD Vance on November 6, 2024, Smith filed a motion to dismiss the case without prejudice, citing the DOJ's policy of not prosecuting sitting Presidents. On November 25, 2024, Judge Chutkan approved the request and dismissed the charges. In January 2025, the special counsel report was released, in which "the Office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial."
Background
Accusations of electoral fraud and attempts to overturn the election
Throughout his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly sowed doubt on the election certification process. Campaigning in Colorado, Trump claimed without evidence that the Democratic Party " the election at polling booths". In October 2016, Trump claimed through a series of tweets that widespread voter fraud would occur in the 2016 presidential election. These statements were echoed by Rudy Giuliani, Trump's legal advisor. Trump continued expressing these sentiments into the 2020 presidential election; for months, he prepared arguments in the event of his loss, primarily relating to mail-in ballots. As early as August 2020, he enlisted conservative activist and lawyer Cleta Mitchell to help overturn the election. The Department of Homeland Security warned that Russia was amplifying claims of fraud occurring in mail-in voting to intentionally sow distrust in the voting process as a whole. Two days before Election Day, Trump told reporters that he would be "going in with lawyers" as soon as the election was over.Bolstered by pro-Trump pundits and perceived strong turnouts at rallies, the Trump campaign was confident that they were going to win the election. On Election Day, preliminary surveys at polling places showed Trump in the lead as his supporters were more likely to turn out in person amid the COVID-19 pandemic, but his lead diminished as mail-in ballots were counted. Following Trump's final campaign event in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Trump's son Eric wagered that he would win at least 322 electoral votes. At the behest of Giuliani, Trump declared in a 2 a.m. election night speech in the East Room that he had won the election and that the counts being reported were fraudulent. As ballots were being counted, campaign data expert Matt Oczkowski bluntly informed Trump that he was going to lose the election. White House Counsel Pat Cipollone told him that invalidating the results of the election would be a "murder-suicide pact". Under then-attorney general William Barr, the Department of Justice failed to find widespread voter fraud in the election. Former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich predicted that Trump voters would erupt in "rage", a sentiment shared by House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, who told Laura Ingraham on The Ingraham Angle that Republicans should not "be silent about this".
Trump and several co-conspirators repeatedly sought to overturn the results of the election. The Department of Justice investigation into these attempts focused on the implementation of the Trump fake electors plot, in which Trump and his allies would draft allegedly fraudulent certificates of ascertainment affirming Trump as the winner. The effort to write these documents and persuade Republican officials to sign them was performed by Trump's lawyers, including Giuliani and John Eastman, who claimed that irregularities in the election had occurred and proposed that an "alternate" slate of electors should be established while they gathered evidence. Although dozens of these electors were installed and affirmed Trump as the winner, the seven state legislatures targeted in the plotArizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsincertified Biden's victory, although Pennsylvania and New Mexico agreed to consider Trump the winner if he succeeded in the many lawsuits challenging the election. The scheme involved sending the fake electoral slates to vice president Mike Pence, pressuring him to count the fake votes. Alternatively, Trump allies posited that Pence could consider the election "defective" under the Electoral Count Act and allow the House of Representatives to decide the outcome.
During the two months following the election, Trump made multiple phone calls to Republican officials in states that had narrowly been won by Biden, asking them to reverse the results and give the victory to him. One such call was to Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, asking him to "find 11,780 votes". Raffensperger recorded the call and subsequently released it to the public. Both Trump and Giuliani called Rusty Bowers, the speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, asking him to look into claims of fraud, but he declined to do so without evidence. John Eastman also called Bowers on January 4 asking him to undo the state's certification of Biden's win, but he refused. Trump and his attorneys, as well as Republican members of Congress, also called or met with state officials in Michigan and Pennsylvania, urging them to report that Trump had actually won their states.
On December 19, 2020, six weeks following his election loss, Trump urged his followers on Twitter to protest in Washington, D.C., on January 6, the day Congress was set to certify the results of the election, writing, "Be there, will be wild!" Over the course of the following weeks, Trump would repeat the January 6 date. The Proud Boys worked out where in DC to meet, and how to get to the United States Capitol. The Red-State Secession Facebook page encouraged its followers to post the addresses of its "enemies" including federal judges. Trump continued to repeat false claims about the election in multiple states leading up to January 6, including Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada, and Arizona. On the morning of January 6, Trump gave a speech in the Ellipse, a park near the White House, and encouraged his followers to walk down to Pennsylvania Avenue to incite within Republicans lawmakers the "kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country". Provoked by Trump, the mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol.
Investigations
The January 6 Capitol attack resulted in hundreds of criminal proceedings. The House of Representatives voted to impeach Trump for a second time on January 13. He was acquitted by the Senate on February 13. The House of Representatives voted to create a select committee to investigate the attack in June 2021. Ahead of its final report, the committee voted to recommend charging Trump of four charges and referred him to the Department of Justice. Two of the four charges recommended by the Select Committee were ultimately brought against him in the indictment, with the charges of "inciting or assisting those in an insurrection" notably not in the indictment nor "Conspiracy to Make a False Statement".In a CNN interview in January 2022, deputy attorney general Lisa Monaco stated that the Department of Justice would investigate the Trump fake electors plot. By March 2022, the Department of Justice had opened an investigation into the events of January 6 and Trump's attempts to overturn the election. The Department of Justice began obtaining White House phone records in April in connection with the January 6 investigation, and a federal grand jury issued subpoenas to Trump's lawyers in connection with the fake electors plot in May. The Washington Post reported in July that the Department of Justice was investigating Trump's actions on January 6. The January 6 investigation was overseen by Thomas Windom, an obscure federal prosecutor.
The FBI investigation was internally codenamed "Arctic Frost" and assigned to the CR15 public corruption unit at the Washington Field Office.
On November 18, 2022, attorney general Merrick Garland appointed Jack Smith to serve as special counsel for the January 6 investigation and the FBI investigation into Donald Trump's handling of government documents. Smith intensified both investigations ahead of increased efforts by Trump to focus on his 2024 presidential campaign. In June 2023, Trump was indicted in connection with the classified documents investigation. Leading up to Trump's indictment in the January 6 investigation, prosecutors continued investigating several strands, including through hundreds of documents provided by former New York Police Department commissioner Bernard Kerik. On July 18, Trump was given a target letter. The following week, his lawyers met with prosecutors, signaling the investigation was nearly complete.