Trump criminal target letter cites conspiracy, interference

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Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event in Council Bluffs, Iowa, July 7, 2023.

Scott Morgan | Reuters

The targeted letter recently sent by special counsel Jack Smith’s lawyers for former President Donald Trump cites three federal criminal statutes, including conspiracy to defraud the United States and witness tampering, NBC reported. News on Wednesday.

The target letter also mentions a third criminal statute, deprivation of rights under color of law, according to NBC, citing two attorneys with direct knowledge of the letter.

Smith is investigating Trump and various allies of the former president for their efforts to reverse his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden.

Those efforts included the submission of falsified Electoral College slates, various legal challenges to state election results, testimony to state lawmakers and Trump’s pressure on Georgia’s top election official to change the election results.

Details of the federal laws cited in the target letter were first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

Trump is the leading candidate for the Republican nomination in next year’s presidential election.

Trump revealed on Tuesday that Smith sent his lawyers the letter, which is usually released by the Justice Department to give people a chance to testify before a grand jury after the discovery of substantial evidence linking them to a crime.

“The deranged Jack Smith, Joe Biden’s DOJ prosecutor, sent a letter (again, Sunday night!) stating that I am a TARGET of the January 6th Grand Jury investigation, and giving me a very short 4 days to report to the Grand Jury, which almost always means Arrest and Indictment,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social site on Tuesday.

Trump has argued that Smith’s investigation is designed to harm his chances of winning the 2024 Republican presidential nomination and general election against Biden.

Multiple sources told NBC News that Trump has no plans to travel to Washington, DC, to testify at a grand jury meeting in federal court there.

Smith on Wednesday morning left his office in Washington to visit the courthouse where the grand jury was meeting. The panel is likely to be the one Smith will ask to prosecute Trump if he decides to seek criminal charges against the former president.

NBC confirmed that former Trump White House aide William Russell, who is working on his 2024 presidential campaign, will testify to the grand jury again, after appearing before that panel multiple times.

Conspiracy to defraud the US can include acts that “interfere with or obstruct legitimate Government activity,” or “use government instrumentality,” the Department of Justice notes on its website.

The DOJ site detailing deprivation of rights under color of law states that it is “a crime for a person acting under color of any law to willfully deprive a person of a right or privilege protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States.”

The law specifically mentions actions taken by federal, state and local officials.

The law on witness tampering covers a wide range of criminal conduct, including persuading another person to withhold their testimony in an official proceeding, and destroying or concealing a document with the intent to undermine its use for an official trial.

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Separately on Wednesday, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Smith’s prosecutors subpoenaed surveillance video footage recorded at State Farm Arena in Atlanta during vote counting there after the 2020 election.

Trump campaign lawyers used surveillance footage from the vote count to argue unsuccessfully in December 2020 that Georgia’s presidential election was tainted by fraud. Biden won Georgia’s popular vote.

Smith last month charged Trump with about three dozen felonies related to his keeping classified documents at his Florida home after leaving the White House, and for allegedly obstructing government officials when they tried to retrieve those records from his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to that charge. His lawyers asked the judge in that case to postpone the trial until after the 2024 presidential election.

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