Trump indictment: 3 bombshells from the latest charges undercut his ‘rigged’ election claims

The 45-page Justice Department indictment of former President Donald Trump released Tuesday contains multiple bombshells, including quotes attributed to him that show he knew his statements about the 2020 election results were false.

Trump and six unnamed co-conspirators were charged by special counsel Jack Smith for their efforts to overturn the election and block the peaceful transfer of power following his loss to Joe Biden. Those efforts came to a head on Jan. 6, 2021, when Trump’s supporters descended on Washington and laid siege to the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to block the Electoral College certification of the election.

‘Just say that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me’

On Dec. 27, 2020, Trump called the then-acting Attorney General Jeffery Rosen and the then-acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue and “raised multiple false claims” about the election, according to the indictment.

“When the Acting Attorney General told the Defendant that the Justice Department could not and would not change the outcome of the election, the Defendant responded, ‘Just say that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen,’” the indictment states.

‘You’re too honest’

According to the indictment, on Jan. 1, 2021, Trump called Pence to berate him for not going along with a plan to have him reject the certification of the Electoral College vote showing Joe Biden had won the election.

“The Vice President responded that he thought there was no constitutional basis for such authority and that it was improper,” the indictment states. “In response, the Defendant [Trump] told the Vice President, ‘you’re too honest.’”

‘Beamed down from the mothership’

By that time Trump had been told multiple times that his claims of fraud could not be backed up with actual evidence.

“As early as mid-November, for instance, the Senior Campaign Advisor had informed the Defendant that his claims of a large number of dead voters in Georgia were untrue,” the indictment reads.

In an email, that campaign adviser lamented, “you can see why we’re 0-32 on our [court] cases. I’ll obviously help on all fronts, but it’s tough to own any of this when it’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.”

While Trump again portrayed the charges against him as part of a series of “un-American witch hunts,” his former vice president issued a strikingly different assessment.

“Today’s indictment serves as an important reminder: Anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be President of the United States,” Pence said in a statement.