“Despite having lost, the Defendant was determined to remain in power.” So reads Tuesday’s federal indictment of former President Donald Trump.
The first set of charges linked to Special Counsel Jack Smith’s probe of Trump’s dealings in the weeks and months leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riots dropped late Tuesday, and the former president faces four felony counts for allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 election. These include: conspiracy to violate civil rights, conspiracy to defraud the American government, corrupt obstruction of an official proceeding, and conspiracy to carry out such obstruction.
Along with these new charges, Trump is now facing three separate criminal cases – the other two concern hush money payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign and mishandling classified documents.
Thus far, he has denied wrongdoing related to the 2020 election. We expect more of the same when he appears in court on Thursday in Washington, DC, to answer the latest charges.
Will even more legal trouble hurt him at the polls? Unlikely. Trump is running neck and neck with President Joe Biden, according to a new Times/Siena poll, and he’s outpacing his nearest Republican rival for the nomination, Gov. Ron DeSantis, by 37 points.
As Jon Lieber, managing director of Eurasia Group's US Practice, pointed out when Trump was indicted recently over his alleged mishandling of classified documents, these scandals don’t seem to hurt the former president. “[He] has survived multiple rounds of scandal, legal challenges, and ethical lapses that would've sunk any other politician.” Case in point: If Trump were to run against DeSantis today, he would, according to the Times/Siena poll, get 22% of his votes from those who believe he has committed federal crimes.
