Former US President Donald Trump has been charged with plotting to overturn his 2020 election defeat following an inquiry into events surrounding the 6 January 2021 riot at the US Capitol.
He is accused of four counts including conspiracy to defraud the US, tampering with a witness and conspiracy against the rights of citizens.
Trump has already been charged in two other cases: with mishandling classified files and falsifying business records to cover up a hush-money payment to Stormy Daniels, an adult movie star.
The election investigation has focused on the former president’s actions in the two-month period between his loss to Joe Biden and the riot in Washington DC, where his supporters stormed Congress as lawmakers certified the Democrat’s victory.
The man leading the inquiry, special counsel Jack Smith, said: “The attack on our nation’s capital on January 6 2021 was an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy.
“As described in the indictment it was fuelled by lies.”
Smith wrapped up his brief statement by pledging to seek “a speedy trial”, while emphasizing that the former president “must be assumed innocent until proven guilty”.
Trump “conspired against the federal government” at the 2020 election
The court document accuses Trump of a “conspiracy to impair, obstruct, and defeat the federal government function through dishonesty, fraud and deceit”.
Addressing Trump’s allegations of voter fraud in 2020, prosecutors say: “These claims were false and the defendant knew that they were false.”
They also say Trump tried and failed to convince Vice-President Mike Pence to attempt to block Biden’s certification as president on January 6, 2021.
“As violence ensued, the Defendant and co-conspirators exploited the disruption by redoubling efforts to levy false claims of election fraud and convince members of Congress to further delay the certification based on those claims.”
The indictment also lists the numerous US officials and senior Trump campaign workers who, it says, informed the outgoing president that he had lost and that there was no evidence of voter fraud.
Trump is due to appear in court on Thursday in Washington DC.
The Trump campaign said in a statement that Tuesday’s indictment amounted to election interference.
“The lawlessness of these persecutions of President Trump and his supporters is reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930s, the former Soviet Union, and other authoritarian, dictatorial regimes,” said the campaign.
It added: “These un-American witch hunts will fail.”
Dozens of top Trump administration officials and advisers were interviewed as part of the investigation, including former vice president Pence and former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani.