On August 1, 2023, Special Counsel Jack Smith announced that former President Trump had been
indicted by a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia.
The four-count indictment alleges that the
former President participated in several 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 ... 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.”
The indictment also alleges that the former President “attempted to, and did, corruptly obstruct and
impede ... the certification of the electoral vote” in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2 and 1512(c)(2).
This is the
third criminal indictment of former President Trump. It follows a state indictment connected to an
investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office into alleged payments made during the final
weeks of the 2016 presidential election, and a separate federal indictment stemming from a federal grand
jury investigation in Florida related to the alleged unlawful retention of national security information
(discussed in this CRS product).
This Legal Sidebar provides an overview of the August 1, 2023,
indictment (“the Indictment”), describing general indictment procedures before summarizing the federal
statutes included in the Indictment.
Legal Background on Indictments
With some exceptions, the Fifth Amendment and Rule 7 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure
require an indictment to prosecute someone for a federal felony (that is, an offense punishable by more
than one year of imprisonment). Indictments are formal charges obtained via a grand jury, a group of
citizens summoned by a court to determine—generally, in secret—whether “enough evidence exists to
Congressional Research Service
https://crsreports.congress.gov
LSB11016
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