Donald Trump Scheduled to Stand Trial on Federal Charges Related to Attempts to Overturn Today's 2020 Election Results

Donald Trump. (Wikimedia Commons/Gage Skidmore)

JAKARTA - Former United States President Donald Trump is scheduled to face federal charges today, in connection with an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 US Election in a Washington courtroom.

Trump - the front-runner for the 2024 Republican US presidential nomination - was indicted on Tuesday on four counts, including conspiring to defraud the US, obstruction of justice, and conspiring to disenfranchise voters to a fair election.

In the 45-page indictment filed by Special Counsel Jack Smith, prosecutors describe a sprawling multistate conspiracy built on Trump's repeated false claims that Democratic Joe Biden's victory had been undermined by widespread fraud.

According to the indictment, Trump ignored advisers who said the election was not rigged and helped organize fake voter lists to try to win electoral votes in states he has lost.

Trump and his allies deliberately encouraged the lies as part of a pressure campaign to try to convince state and federal officials to throw away the election results, prosecutors said, culminating in a crowd of Trump supporters storming the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in an attempt to deter Congress to certify Biden's victory.

"Despite the defeat, the defendant is determined to remain in power," the indictment reads, reported by Reuters on August 2.

Later, Trump issued a statement accusing President Biden's Administration of targeting him for political gain.

"The lawlessness perpetrated against President Trump and his supporters is reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930s, the former Soviet Union, and other authoritarian and dictatorial regimes," the campaign said.

Smith, the former chief prosecutor for the special tribunal in The Hague, was appointed as special counsel by US Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Special counsel is sometimes appointed to handle politically sensitive investigations, to protect the Justice Department from allegations of bias.

Trump, 77, the first former US president to face criminal charges, has been indicted on three separate occasions this year. In June, Smith's office charged him in a separate case with allegedly retaining classified documents after leaving the White House and obstructing efforts to retrieve them.

Earlier this year, the Manhattan District Attorney's office filed charges that he falsified business records to hide hush money payments to a porn star who admitted to having an affair with Trump several years ago.

Trump himself has maintained his innocence in both cases and described the investigation, as well as the election probe, as part of a coordinated "witch hunt".

In Georgia, the district attorney in Atlanta, Fani Willis, has been investigating whether Trump and his associates illegally meddled in the state's elections for more than two years.

Willis, a Democratic lawmaker, has indicated he intends to press charges in the investigation within the next three weeks.

Despite the cases he faces, Trump continues to trail his Republican rivals in the 2024 presidential election, according to public opinion polls.

Strategists said while the indictment could help Trump galvanize support among Republican voters, who perceive the indictment to be bogus, it could be even more damaging among independent voters in the general election against Joe Biden.

Nonetheless, many Republican officials, not wanting to upset Trump's substantial base of supporters, attacked Biden, claiming the latest charges were politically motivated.

Trump's main contender for the Republican nomination, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, declined to discuss the specifics of the charges, but vowed to end "the guns of the federal government."