Read the Trump Jan. 6 Indictment

Trump faces four new charges, including conspiracy to defraud the United States.

Mother Jones; Chip Somodevilla/Getty

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For the third time this year, former President Trump has been indicted. Potentially the most serious case, this federal indictment deals with Trump’s alleged role in the effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

The four new charges include conspiracy to defraud the United States, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison if convicted.

“Despite having lost, the Defendant was determined to stay in power,” prosecutors wrote in the charging document. “So for more than two months following Election Day on November 3, 2020, the Defendant spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won. These claims were false, and the Defendant knew that they were false. But the Defendant repeated and widely disseminated them anyway—to make his knowingly false claims appear legitimate, create an intense national atmosphere of mistrust and anger, and erode public faith in the administration of the election.”

Read the charges here:

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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