By Canadian Press

Trump charged by Justice Department for efforts to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss

Aug 1, 2023 | 4:36 PM

WASHINGTON (AP) – Donald Trump has been indicted on four felony counts that accuse him of working to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the run-up to the violent riot by his supporters at the U.S. Capitol.

The charges include conspiracy to defraud the United States government and witness tampering. It’s the third criminal case brought against the former president as he seeks to reclaim the White House.

Federal prosecutors say Trump was “determined to remain in power” in conspiracies that 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.”

Trump is due in court Thursday.

Federal prosecutors said in their indictment that he had the right to formally challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election but his behaviour became criminal over a monthslong effort that attempted to discount legitimate voters and subvert the results.

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Trump 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” prosecutors said in the court documents filed Tuesday.

The indictment describes a monthslong plan, from Nov. 14, 2020 to Jan. 20, 2021, as Trump and the others conspired to defraud the United States.

The Associated Press