Trump indicted on 4 counts including efforts to overturn 2020 election results

US prosecutors have indicted former US President Donald Trump on Tuesday in connection with his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. It’s the third time in four months that the former president has been charged criminally.

The indictment filed Tuesday night is the third criminal case filed against the former president and current frontrunner in the 2024 GOP presidential race.

The four count indictment alleges Trump conspired to defraud the US by preventing Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s win. It says that deprived voters of their right to a fair election.

The 45-page indictment said Trump after his 2020 loss was “determined to remain in power” and perpetrated 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.”

Special Council for the US Department of Justice Jack Smith said, “The attack on our nation’s Capitol on January 6th, 2021, was an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy.”

Smith’s investigation alleges the attack was fueled by lies Trump told targeted at obstructing the function of the US government.

At least seven people died in connection with the riot. Less than an hour earlier, Trump had addressed his supporters as Congress was meeting to certify the results of the November vote. He refused to concede defeat and urged them to “fight like hell.”

Trump was already the first person to serve as president to face criminal charges.

In June, a federal grand jury indicted him for hiding classified documents at his home.

Trump has been ordered to appear in a Washington court on Thursday to face the new charges.

A Trump spokesperson likened the new indictment to “Nazi Germany in the 1930s, the former Soviet Union, and other authoritarian, dictatorial regimes,” calling them “un-American.”