Former President Donald Trump indicted in Jan. 6 riot

The indictment accuses Trump of obstructing an official proceeding under a statute passed after the Enron scandal the Justice Department has used to charge hundreds of defendants in connection with the Capitol riot. It carries a maximum prison term of up to 20 years in prison. The indictment charges Trump with:

The charges are the culmination of more than two-and-a-half years of investigation into the Jan. 6 attack, which saw thousands of the former president’s supporters storm the Capitol during a joint session of Congress to certify President Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 election. 

The riot caused the constitutionally mandated proceeding to be halted for approximately six hours and resulted in millions of dollars’ worth of damage to the Capitol. Four members of the crowd died that day, including Ashli Babbitt, a U.S. Air Force veteran who was shot and killed while attempting to climb through a window into the Speaker’s Lobby. The deaths of five police officers have also been linked to the riot along with injuries sustained by more than 140 others.

Since November, the federal investigations into both Trump’s efforts to overturn the election and his possession of classified documents at his Florida estate have been overseen by special counsel Jack Smith, a former acting U.S. attorney who previously lead the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section. Prior to his appointment by Attorney General Merrick Garland as special counsel, Smith was serving a second term as chief prosecutor at the Hague for an international tribunal investigating and prosecuting war crimes in the Kosovo War.

Smith promised upon his appointment that the pace of investigations into efforts to overturn the 2020 election and the former president “will not pause or flag under my watch.” Last month, he sought and received a historic grand jury indictment in Florida accusing Trump of 37 felony counts alleging he willfully retained national defense information and conspired to obstruct the subsequent investigation. Walt Nauta, a former U.S. Navy petty officer who served as Trump’s valet in the White House and has continued working for him as a personal aide, is named as a co-defendant in that case. Trump is also the subject of a separate grand jury investigation into possible election interference in Georgia. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has said she may seek a grand jury indictment in that case in August.

In addition to the federal cases against him, Trump was also indicted in April in an unrelated investigation by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg on 34 counts relating to hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election.

In the 30 months since the Capitol riot, the Justice Department has charged more than 1,000 defendants, including more than 350 accused of assaulting, resisting or impeding law enforcement. More than 600 people have now pleaded guilty or been convicted at trial, including dozens of members of extremist organizations like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys accused of conspiring to disrupt the certification of the 2020 election on Jan. 6.

Trump is scheduled to be arraigned on Thursday.

This is a developing story and will be updated.