Special Counsel Smith informed him to report to a jury within four days, the former president said. This is “terrible news” for the United States.
Former US President Donald Trump apparently expects indictments in connection with the violent storming of the US Parliament on January 6, 2021. Special investigator Jack Smith informed him in a letter that he was the target of the investigation and would return within four should report days to a jury – a so-called grand jury – said Trump. This almost always means an arrest and indictment. Smith’s letter reached him on Sunday – it was “terrible news for our country”.
It would be the second federal indictment against Trump and the third criminal charge. The Republican was indicted in a federal court in Miami in mid-June because after his term in office he kept top-secret government documents in his Mar-a-Lago estate and did not return them when requested. Trump pleaded not guilty.
The 77-year-old wants to run again for the Republicans in the presidential election next year. The Justice Department had used the special counsel in November to outsource the politically sensitive investigations into the ex-president. Smith handles both the stolen documents affair and the Republican’s role in Trump supporters’ attack on the Capitol. He has been checking for months whether there is enough evidence to take legal action.
Trump clearly lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden. To this day, however, he does not accept the defeat and spreads the lie about electoral fraud. On January 6, 2021, Trump supporters stormed the seat of the US Congress in Washington, where the election defeat was to be formally confirmed. Trump had previously incited the crowd during a speech in Washington. Hundreds then forcibly entered Congress, and five people died. In addition, Trump had publicly called on his deputy Mike Pence to block the procedure for certifying Biden’s election victory. However, Pence adhered to the Constitution.