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The federal grand jury investigating the riot at the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, and the efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election delivered a sealed indictment to a D.C.-based magistrate judge, NBC News reported.
While the judge sealed the indictment, the office of Special Counsel Jack Smith announced that former President Donald Trump was indicted by the grand jury. Trump is facing four charges: 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.
The indictment also lists six unnamed co-conspirators.
"The Defendant and co-conspirators used knowingly false claims of election fraud to get state legislators and election officials to subvert the legitimate election results and change electoral votes for the Defendant's opponent, Joseph R. Biden, Jr., to electoral votes for the Defendant," the indictment says.
Trump is expected to be arraigned on Thursday.
About 30 minutes before the indictment was delivered, Trump posted about the looming indictment on Truth Social.
"I hear that Deranged Jack Smith, in order to interfere with the Presidential Election of 2024, will be putting out yet another Fake Indictment of your favorite President, me, at 5:00 P.M. Why didn't they do this 2.5 years ago? Why did they wait so long? Because they wanted to put it right in the middle of my campaign. Prosecutorial Misconduct!" Trump wrote.
This is the third time that Trump has been indicted since leaving office. In April, Trump was indicted on business fraud charges in New York concerning hush money payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign. In June, a federal grand jury indicted Trump on multiple charges related to classified documents that he kept after leaving the White House.
Despite the legal woes that Trump is facing, he still holds a sizable lead in the Republican presidential primary.