At least Donald Trump won’t say he was surprised. As recently as yesterday, the former president predicted on his social media platform that he’d be indicted for a third time “any day now.”
To know anything about the Republican is to know his words are nearly always unreliable, but in this instance, his expectations were in line with reality: Trump has been indicted as part of Special counsel Jack Smith’s 2020 election probe. NBC News reported moments ago:
Former President Donald Trump has been indicted by a federal grand jury investigating his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, the special counsel’s office announced Tuesday.
This is a four-count indictment, charging Trump with 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.
It was in late March when Trump became the first former American president to be indicted, when a New York district attorney brought charges against the Republican as part of his hush-money-to-a-porn-star scandal. In June, the special counsel’s office filed its first criminal indictment against the former president, as part of his classified documents scandal, making Trump the first former American president to face federal charges.
Last week, that story went from bad to worse when the public learned of a new, superseding indictment filed by Jack Smith and federal prosecutors that raised new allegations.
Today’s news, in other words, means that Trump has now been indicted for the third time in roughly 18 weeks. As the political and legal worlds absorb today’s developments, it’s worth pausing to appreciate the larger context. When it comes to the alleged crimes committed in the aftermath of Trump’s 2020 defeat, we’re accustomed to seeing certain kinds of suspects. Indeed, in the months and years that followed the former president’s exit from the White House, several hundred people have been charged, though most of them have something important in common: They’re relatively obscure figures — rank-and-file Jan. 6 rioters, assorted partisans who thought it’d be wise to pretend to be real presidential electors, etc. — who made the tragic mistake of believing a desperate charlatan’s ridiculous lies. There’s been far less accountability, however, for those who created and disseminated the lies, manipulated their unsuspecting marks, and rejected legitimate election results, all in the hopes of advancing their own undemocratic interests. This afternoon, all of that changed. Instead of one of Trump’s followers getting charged, it was Trump himself.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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