Former President Donald Trump is being accused of acting as a private candidate for office rather than as president of the United States when he attempted to overturn his 2020 election loss, according to a filing by special counsel Jack Smith’s team. The filing is in response to a Supreme Court ruling that granted Trump immunity for some actions taken while in office. The team argues that Trump must stand trial for his private crimes and a federal grand jury has returned a superseding indictment against him.
Trump allegedly launched a series of plans to overturn the election results in seven states that he lost, relying on falsehoods about the election that he knew were lies. He worked with a team of private co-conspirators, including campaign employees and volunteers, to carry out the alleged scheme, which involved disrupting the government function of collecting and counting votes through fraud and deceit.
Trump was aware that the initial election night results might be misleading and declared that he would simply declare victory before all the ballots were counted. He publicly laid the groundwork for this by suggesting that he would only lose if there was fraud. The case is still ongoing and updates are expected.
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