Trump formally indicted for attempting to overturn the 2020 election

Jack Smith filed four charges against the presidential candidate, including conspiracy to deprive citizens of the "free exercise" of constitutional rights and obstruction of official process.

Donald Trump added another case to his collection of court cases. Federal prosecutors indicted the former president in relation to his actions after the 2020 presidential elections. Jack Smith, the special prosecutor appointed to the case, led the investigation, which resulted in four charges: conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights.

The indictment is 45 pages long and resulted from an extensive investigation, which featured a parade of high-profile witnesses, including Mike Pence and Gary Michael Brown, a senior official in Trump's 2020 presidential campaign.

The current Republican presidential candidate has experienced a surge in the polls every time he has been charged with a crime. In this case, he faces four charges for three different offenses. One of them: conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, suggests that prosecutors will target other names as accomplices.

The charges are the latest addition to the collection of the former president's court cases, including classified documents, falsification of financial records and potentially the Fulton County, Georgia case.

The DOJ launched an investigation long ago into what happened on January 6, 2021, when Trump supporters invaded the Capitol and delayed certification of the 2020 presidential election. So far, more than 950 defendants have been arrested for their alleged involvement in the riots, and more than 500 were convicted. The case is under the tutelage of special counsel Jack Smith, who recently added Raymond Hulser and David Harbach, attorneys with experience in public corruption cases, to his team.

Trump had already been notified about the investigation days earlier. At that time, he picked up his phone and wrote the following: "The deranged Jack Smith, the U.S. Attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, [and] Joe Biden sent a letter (again, it was Sunday night!) stating that I am a target of the January 6 Grand Jury investigation, and giving me a very short four-day deadline to inform the grand jury, which almost always means an arrest and indictment."