The Trump Indictments: The 91 Criminal Counts Against the Former President of the United States

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Introduction: Justice on Trial by Ali Velshi

1. United States of America v. Donald J. Trump

U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia

2. United States of America v. Donald J. Trump, Waltine Nauta, and Carlos De Oliveira

U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida

3. The State of Georgia v. Donald John Trump, et al.

Fulton Superior Court

4. People of the State of New York v. Trump

Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of New York

Appendix: Original Documents Case Indictment: United States of America v. Donald J. Trump and Waltine Nauta

About Mariner Books

About the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

Introduction

Justice on Trial

Ali Velshi

The Defendant, Donald J. Trump, did knowingly combine, conspire, confederate and agree with co-conspirators, known and unknown to the Grand Jury, to injure, oppress, threaten and intimidate one or more persons in free exercise and enjoyment of a right and privilege secured to them by the Constitution and laws of the United States—that is, the right to vote, and to have one’s vote counted.

(In violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 24l)

Jack Smith

Special Counsel

United States Department of Justice

August 1, 2023.

So ends the initial filing of United States of America v. Donald J. Trump, Defendant, the federal election interference indictment of the 45th president of the United States—his THIRD indictment of four, and the second by Special Counsel Jack Smith.

Of the four charges in this indictment, it is count four, which accuses Donald Trump of conspiracy against rights that gets the fewest words, and no explanation in the text. For good reason. In the effort to preserve our American democracy, this final, simple charge is perhaps the most relevant, and the most salient, to the lay reader. For any American citizen who lives and breathes democracy, now maybe more than any time in recent memory, it is the charge least in need of explanation.

As you will read in the following pages, numerous federal and state laws are alleged to have been broken; as of this writing, ninety-one by the former president himself, often with the aid of a tightly knit cabal of co-conspirators. Then there’s a whole list of separate allegations made against a variety of other characters, some of them indicted, some simply named, and still others who remain anonymous and, as yet, uncharged. The pages contain so many charges, and those charges are so detailed, that we risk becoming numb to their monumental importance, particularly those of us who lack formal legal training.

Hence, this book.

Typically, the layperson is happy to leave legal briefs to the lawyers and scientific studies to the scientists. But there are some matters of such import that we must read and form our own opinions about them. These multiple indictments of, and charges against, a former president of the United States, a man who is alleged to have attempted to undermine the infrastructure that protects our democracy, fall into that category. We must read these words, and not merely read them but sit with them, digest them, and comprehend them. We cannot allow their meaning, nor the legal doctrines which underpin them, to get past us. In order to argue—and defend—the belief that no one is above the law, we cannot simply leave these charges to the interpretation of others.

These indictments, along with the decisions that will ultimately be rendered by the respective juries of your fellow citizens, will become some of the most significant political and legal documents in our nation’s history. Buried in the details are matters that are not just relevant to the defendants, but are of critical importance to you and to those around the world who still hold America’s democracy as the gold standard to which they aspire.

This book contains the indictments in four cases, in four separate jurisdictions, brought by three prosecutors.

CASE 1: FEDERAL ELECTION INTERFERENCE

United States of America v. Donald J. Trump

On August 1, 2023, Donald Trump was charged with four counts by Special Counsel Jack Smith, who was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland. This federal case is about Trump and his confederates’ alleged sweeping efforts to retain power after the 2020 election, specifically pertaining to the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. The four charges outlined in the forty-five-page indictment are one count of conspiracy to violate rights, one count of conspiracy to defraud the government, and one count each of obstructing an official proceeding and conspiring to do so.

The central thesis of Smith’s indictment of Donald Trump is that, regardless of whether or not Trump had a sincere belief that he had won the election, his advisors, lawyers, his own Department of Justice, election recount audits, and several court cases proved otherwise. Despite all the evidence, Trump and six unindicted co-conspirators persisted in their efforts to prevent the certification of Joe Biden as president of the United States on January 6, 2021, and the peaceful transition of power.

The trial is currently scheduled to begin on March 4, 2024. If convicted, Donald Trump could face fifty-five years in prison.

CASE 2: MAR-A-LAGO CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS

United States of America v. Donald J. Trump, et al.

On June 9, 2023, Special Counsel Jack Smith charged Donald Trump with thirty-seven counts. This case involves Trump’s handling of sensitive government documents that were the property of the U.S. government, and that he improperly took with him upon leaving office to his residence in Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida. The forty-nine-page indictment alleges that Trump was involved with unauthorized retention of national security secrets and obstruction of efforts by the government to retrieve the files. His aide, Waltine Nauta, is also named in the indictment.

On July 27, 2023, Jack Smith filed what’s called a superseding indictment in addition to the existing charges related to the classified documents. That indictment, also included herein, charges Donald Trump with three additional counts, alleging that he obstructed the investigation by attempting to delete Mar-a-Lago security footage sought by the grand jury. It also brings charges against Carlos De Oliveira, a property manager at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, for his alleged involvement, and involves Nauta again.

In total, Trump is charged with forty counts within these two indictments: thirty-two counts related to unauthorized retention of national security secrets, seven counts related to obstructing the investigation, and three counts related to false statements between Trump, Nauta, and De Oliveira.

The trial is currently scheduled to begin on May 20, 2024. If convicted, Donald Trump could face 460 years in prison.

CASE 3: GEORGIA

The State of Georgia v. Donald John Trump, et al.

On August 14, 2023, Donald Trump and eighteen co-conspirators were charged with forty-one counts by Fulton County district attorney Fani T. Willis. Trump is facing thirteen of those counts. The case is unique in that it relies on Georgia’s RICO—Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations—statute, alleging a vast conspiracy to reverse Trump’s 2020 election loss in Georgia and other states. It is alleged that Trump and his co-conspirators attempted to overturn the state’s election results and subvert the will of Georgia voters. In the ninety-eight-page indictment, nineteen defendants are charged with twenty-two counts related to forgery or false documents and statements, eight counts related to soliciting or impersonating public officers, three counts related to influencing witnesses, three counts related to election fraud or defrauding the state, three counts related to computer tampering, one count related to racketeering, and one count related to perjury. If convicted, Donald Trump could face seventy-six and a half years in prison.

CASE 4: MANHATTAN

People of the State of New York v. Trump

On March 30, 2023, Donald Trump was charged with thirty-four counts by Manhattan County, New York’s elected district attorney Alvin L. Bragg. The case revolves around hush-money payments related to Donald Trump’s first presidential campaign in 2016. It alleges that in 2017, Trump falsified Trump Organization business records related to reimbursing his then lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, for payments made to the adult film actress known as Stormy Daniels. The twenty-nine-page indictment outlines eleven counts related to invoices from Cohen, eleven counts related to checks, and twelve counts related to ledger entries. The trial is scheduled to begin on March 25, 2024, in New York state court in Manhattan. If convicted, Donald Trump could face 136 years in prison, though experts think this is unlikely.

The indictments that you’ll find in these pages will serve as roadmaps to these trials, the outcomes of which will have a direct impact upon the right of American citizens to participate in free and fair elections—the right to vote, and to have one’s vote counted, as Jack Smith put it. They will have a direct impact on that right, as well as the method and the means by which we are able to contest the outcome of elections, via recounts, audits, and judicial appeals. The historic trials will underscore our protections, but also our obligations as citizens when those rights are subverted. And they will put a spotlight on not just those accused of doing the wrong thing, but also on those who stood fast and did the right thing, perhaps saving our democracy in the process, thus giving us this opportunity to examine and understand its weaknesses, and buttress it against future attacks.

Booking photograph, Fulton County Jail, Atlanta, Georgia, August 24, 2023

And yet, beyond all these existential rationales, there is another—maybe a better—reason to keep this book of indictments near. With this in your hand, you will have access to the same criminal charges the juries in these cases will have. Those charges have been variously described as a slam dunk or a layup, while simultaneously being called politicized. The indictments have also been billed as part of a coordinated witch hunt and, without irony, election interference. Reading them, you will be able to evaluate those claims against the evidence laid out. But even that will not be simple. Some say these indictments are an easy read, but they are filled with concepts that may feel unfamiliar, terms that don’t roll off the tongue. It will be on the jurors to understand these concepts, and it will be on the prosecutors to make them accessible and easy to follow—and, ultimately, to prove that laws were broken in the pursuit of a criminal, antidemocratic enterprise. By having this book, when the verdicts come down you will understand why the juries came to the conclusions they did.

Finally, there is the issue of free speech and protections afforded to Defendant Trump under the First Amendment of the Constitution. This issue will be endlessly raised in the months ahead, and Special Counsel Jack Smith perhaps puts it best when he states on page 2, paragraph 3 of his election interference indictment:

The Defendant had a right, like every American, to speak publicly about the election and even to claim, falsely, that there had been outcome-determinative fraud during the election and that he had won. He was also entitled to formally challenge the results of the election through lawful and appropriate means, such as by seeking recounts or audits of the popular vote in states or filing lawsuits challenging ballots or procedures. Indeed, in many cases, the Defendant did pursue these methods of contesting the election results. His efforts to change the outcome in any state through recounts, audits or legal challenges were uniformly unsuccessful.

This explicit recognition of Trump’s First Amendment rights—including the right to deny the outcome of the election, and to lie about it—is critical. Despite protestations to the contrary, that’s not what he is being prosecuted for, not in federal court, nor in Georgia. These prosecutions are for alleged criminal acts. Donald Trump cannot—and will not—be convicted for publicly denying the validity and outcome of the 2020 election. That, as damaging as it may be, is a political matter, not a legal one. What he tried to do as a result of it is what is at issue.

There is also a constitutional question that is not addressed in these indictments but which will be hovering over and around the trials. It relates to whether or not Donald Trump already has been, or will be, found responsible for what many believe to have been an insurrection. Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution states:

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Does this amendment disqualify Trump from assuming office, should he run for president again, and win? Some of the country’s greatest legal minds say it does. Two scholars affiliated with the conservative Federalist Society, William Baude of the University of Chicago and Michael Stokes Paulsen of the University of St. Thomas, as well as Conservative former federal court judge J. Michael Luttig and liberal Harvard constitutional expert Laurence Tribe, share the view that Trump cannot again hold office. But they all seem to recognize that there is no obvious existing mechanism to enforce this. Presidential elections are not federal; there are fifty separate state elections for president, so it may fall to the secretaries of state of the individual states, or governors, or state legislatures, to determine Donald Trump’s eligibility to appear on the ballot, and to be certified and assume office if he wins. Some argue that his culpability has been established by his impeachment and the work of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. Others say those were both political procedures. Should Donald Trump prevail in the Republican presidential nomination, would a conviction in the federal or Georgia cases be the support state officials need to keep him off the ballot? That is but one of the monumental unknowns we face as a nation.

Long after the adjudication of these indictments, we will still be debating whether these charges and the resulting trials were the upholding of democracy, or the politicized subjugation of it. Because of that, the prosecutors and judges in these cases, conscious of the valid scrutiny they will face, will have to redouble their efforts to make sure they aren’t viewed as political or zealous or simply unfair. These four cases, and the ninety-one charges therein against a former president of the United States, will form the backbone of whether, and how, we choose to strengthen our democracy against future direct assaults on it. The trials will refer heavily to the acts and charges contained in these pages, so much so that you will want to keep this volume close to where you most frequently consume your news; a constant reference so that we, as citizens and voters, can consult the actual allegations as we hear the cases being made, and the counter-arguments being presented, ready with pen or pencil or Post-it to note our first thoughts, the words or ideas that come to us, in our mutual quest for justice and a more perfect Union.

1.

United States of America v. Donald J. Trump

In the United States District Court for the District of Columbia

INDICTMENT

The Grand Jury charges that, at all times material to this Indictment, on or about the dates and at the approximate times stated below:

INTRODUCTION

1. The Defendant, DONALD J. TRUMP, was the forty-fifth President of the United States and a candidate for re-election in 2020. The Defendant lost the 2020 presidential election.

2. Despite having lost, the Defendant was determined to remain in power. So for more than two months following election day on November 3, 2020, the Defendant spread 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. But the Defendant repeated and widely disseminated them anyway—to make his knowingly false claims appear legitimate, create an intense national atmosphere of mistrust and anger, and erode public faith in the administration of the election.

3. The Defendant had a right, like every American, to speak publicly about the election and even to claim, falsely, that there had been outcome-determinative fraud during the election and that he had won. He was also entitled to formally challenge the results of the election through lawful and appropriate means, such as by seeking recounts or audits of the popular vote in states or filing lawsuits challenging ballots and procedures. Indeed, in many cases, the Defendant did pursue these methods of contesting the election results. His efforts to change the outcome in any state through recounts, audits, or legal challenges were uniformly unsuccessful.

4. Shortly after election day, the Defendant also pursued unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the election results. In so doing, the Defendant perpetrated three criminal conspiracies:

A conspiracy to defraud the United States by using dishonesty, fraud, and deceit to impair, obstruct, and defeat the lawful federal government function by which the results of the presidential election are collected, counted, and certified by the federal government, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371;

A conspiracy to corruptly obstruct and impede the January 6 congressional proceeding at which the collected results of the presidential election are counted and certified (the certification proceeding), in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(k); and

A conspiracy against the right to vote and to have one’s vote counted, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 241.

Each of these conspiracies—which built on the widespread mistrust the Defendant was creating through pervasive and destabilizing lies about election fraud—targeted a bedrock function of the United States federal government: the nation’s process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election (the federal government function).

COUNT ONE

(Conspiracy to Defraud the United States—18 U.S.C. § 371)

5. The allegations contained in paragraphs 1 through 4 of this Indictment are realleged and fully incorporated here by reference.

The Conspiracy

6. From on or about November 14, 2020, through on or about January 20, 2021, in the District of Columbia and elsewhere, the Defendant,

DONALD J. TRUMP,

did knowingly combine, conspire, confederate, and agree with co-conspirators, known and unknown to the Grand Jury, to defraud the United States by using dishonesty, fraud, and deceit to impair, obstruct, and defeat the lawful federal government function by which the results of the presidential election are collected, counted, and certified by the federal government.

Purpose of the Conspiracy

7. The purpose of the conspiracy was to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election by using knowingly false claims of election fraud to obstruct the federal government function by which those results are collected, counted, and certified.

The Defendant’s Co-Conspirators

8. The Defendant enlisted co-conspirators to assist him in his criminal efforts to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election and retain power. Among these were:

Co-Conspirator 1, an attorney who was willing to spread knowingly false claims and pursue strategies that the Defendant’s 2020 re-election campaign attorneys would not.

Co-Conspirator 2, an attorney who devised and attempted to implement a strategy to leverage the Vice President’s ceremonial role overseeing the certification proceeding to obstruct the certification of the presidential election.

Co-Conspirator 3, an attorney whose unfounded claims of election fraud the Defendant privately acknowledged to others sounded crazy. Nonetheless, the Defendant embraced and publicly amplified Co-Conspirator 3’s disinformation.

Co-Conspirator 4, a Justice Department official who worked on civil matters and who, with the Defendant, attempted to use the Justice Department to open sham election crime investigations and influence state legislatures with knowingly false claims of election fraud.

Co-Conspirator 5, an attorney who assisted in devising and attempting to implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding.

Co-Conspirator 6, a political consultant who helped implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors