Trump's Election Law Violations: What You Need To Know

Former US President Donald Trump has been charged with breaking several election laws. Trump is the first former president in US history to be criminally convicted. He has been charged in four separate criminal cases, bringing his total criminal charges to 91. The charges include conspiracy to defraud the US, conspiracy against the rights of citizens, falsifying business records, and violating state racketeering laws. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges and claims that the cases are politically motivated.

Obstruction of an official proceeding

The obstruction of an official proceeding is a felony under US federal law. It was enacted as part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 in reaction to the Enron scandal, and closed a legal loophole on who could be charged with evidence tampering by defining the new crime very broadly.

The crime is codified as 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2). The relevant subsection reads:

> (c) Whoever corruptly—

> (1) alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object, or attempts to do so, with the intent to impair the object's integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding; or

> (2) otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so,

> shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.

The term "official proceeding" is defined in 18 U.S.C. § 1515(a)(1) to include proceedings before federal judges, Congress, federal government agencies, and regulators of insurance businesses.

Donald Trump was charged with two counts of obstructing an official proceeding and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding for his conduct following the 2020 presidential election through the January 6 Capitol attack.

The Department of Justice alleged that Trump obstructed Congress' certification of the electoral college results on January 6, including by creating fake election certificates declaring himself the winner of key swing states, as well as pressuring then-Vice President Mike Pence to disregard then-President-elect Joe Biden's electors and pushing the DOJ to falsely claim there were problems with the vote in Georgia or other states.

Trump's indictment on this charge was upheld by the Supreme Court in Fischer v. United States, which ruled that the statute could be applied when the defendant impaired a physical document or object used in an official proceeding or attempted to do so.

Conspiracy to defraud the US

Conspiracy to defraud the United States is a federal offence in the United States of America. It is a crime committed by two or more persons who conspire to commit an offence against the United States or to defraud the country.

The House Jan. 6 committee urged the Justice Department to consider prosecuting former president Donald Trump for four different crimes, including conspiracy to defraud the United States. The committee's referrals to the Justice Department carry no legal weight, but the Justice Department is already conducting its own investigation.

The committee said it amassed substantial evidence that Trump sought to obstruct the certification of the election, including by summoning supporters to Washington on the day Congress was meeting, and through a pressure campaign aimed at getting Vice President Mike Pence to prevent the votes from being certified.

The panel also recommended that conservative lawyer John Eastman be prosecuted on the same count, noting that a federal judge in California had already concluded in a separate lawsuit that evidence of a criminal conspiracy likely existed.

The committee also said that other Trump associates engaged in the same conspiracy, although it did not attempt to identify all of them since many refused to cooperate with the panel. However, among the names the committee did single out was Jeffrey Clark, a former senior Justice Department official who had pledged to advance Trump's efforts to undo the election results if he was named acting attorney general.

Conspiracy to defraud the United States is punishable by a fine or up to five years in prison.

Conspiracy to make a false statement

The House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack urged the Justice Department to consider prosecuting Trump for four different crimes, including conspiracy to make a false statement. The committee's referrals to the Justice Department carry no legal weight since federal prosecutors are already conducting their own investigation and are the sole deciders of whether to pursue charges against Trump.

The Justice Department has already been known to be investigating the alleged scheme, and months ago issued grand jury subpoenas to the "fake electors" in multiple states, underscoring prosecutors' interest in the activity.

Inciting or aiding an insurrection

On January 6, 2021, thousands of supporters of former US President Donald Trump gathered at a "Save America" rally to challenge the result of the 2020 presidential election. In a 70-minute address, Trump exhorted his supporters to march on Congress, where the certification of Joe Biden's victory was taking place. The attack on the Capitol began shortly after his speech ended.

Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives on a charge of incitement after the attack. The House Jan. 6 committee urged the Justice Department to consider prosecuting Trump for inciting or aiding an insurrection, among other charges. The committee's referral carries no legal weight, and federal prosecutors are conducting their own investigation.

The committee argued that Trump incited the insurrection by summoning rioters to Washington on January 6 with the goal of mobilizing a large crowd of supporters. The committee noted that some of the accused rioters charged by the Justice Department cited Trump's tweets as their inspiration. During the riot, Trump showed no concern when the mob chanted, "Hang Mike Pence!" and he resisted advisers' pleas to tell the rioters to disperse. In total, 187 minutes elapsed between the end of Trump's speech and his first effort to get the rioters to disperse.

The committee also asserted that Trump criminally engaged in a "multi-part conspiracy" to overturn the election results and failed to act to stop his supporters from attacking the Capitol. The report concluded that Trump lit that fire of the insurrection and that his actions directly influenced his supporters who violently breached the Capitol.

Trump has denied any wrongdoing and claimed that the prosecution is politically motivated. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Criminal solicitation to commit election fraud

In January 2021, Georgia's Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis opened a criminal investigation into former US President Donald Trump's attempts to influence the state's 2020 election results. The probe centres on a phone call Trump made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on 2 January 2021, urging him to “find” enough votes to overturn his loss to Joe Biden in the state.

Legal experts say Trump's phone calls may have violated at least three state criminal election laws, one of which is criminal solicitation to commit election fraud.

For a criminal solicitation charge, prosecutors would have to show that Trump persistently requested another person to engage in certain illegal conduct that was "likely and imminent" as a result of the solicitation. The fact that the solicited acts were not carried out is not considered a defence.

The statute for soliciting a public officer to fail to perform duties could apply to Trump when he pressured Raffensperger to "find 11,780 votes", as well as his phone calls to Chief Investigator Frances Watson and House Speaker David Ralston. The threshold question is whether Raffensperger would have failed to perform his duty as the state's top election official if he had done what Trump wanted.

The statute for soliciting the tampering of ballots, meanwhile, could apply to Trump when he pressed Watson to go beyond protocol to go back "two years, as opposed to just checking, you know, one against the other" in conducting signature checks during ballot audits. The critical issue in that call would be whether Trump was asking Watson to use a non-standard method to invalidate legitimate ballots that would benefit him by reducing the number of legitimate votes for Biden.

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