WASHINGTON – Former President Donald Trump was indicted in federal court on Tuesday for allegedly making “knowingly false” claims of voter fraud and sending rioters to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 in a desperate ploy to remain president despite losing the 2020 presidential election.
While Trump is the only person charged in the crimes so far, the 45-page indictment includes references to six unnamed “co-conspirators.”
Special counsel Jack Smith said Tuesday the six individuals remain under investigation for their role in the former president’s attempt to overthrow the election he lost.
“Since the attack on our Capitol, the Department of Justice has remained committed to ensuring accountability for those criminally responsible for what happened that day,” Smith said during a brief press conference Tuesday.
“This case is brought consistent with our commitment and our investigation of other individuals continues.”
While Smith has not disclosed the names of those under investigation, The Post identified the most likely individuals listed as co-conspirators in the indictment using previously known facts about Trump’s circle of cronies in the months following the November 2020 election.
Perhaps the most well-known of the alleged conspirators, Trump’s former attorney and prior New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani is believed to be the person referenced in the indictment as “co-conspirator 1.”
“Co-conspirator 1, an attorney who was willing to spread knowingly false claims and pursue strategies that the defendant’s 2020 re-election campaign attorneys would not,” the indictment says of the individual believed to be Giuliani.
Giuliani had a key role in pushing the false narrative that the election was “stolen” and “fraudulent” as part of what prosecutors said was a methodical plan to overturn the results and keep Trump in the White House, according to testimony before the House Select Committee that investigated Jan. 6.
Attorney John Eastman is credited with devising the legal scheme that set the plot in motion.
In a two-page memo, Eastman laid out a six-step plan claiming then-Vice President Mike Pence didn’t have to accept the election results in certain swing states, which Pence rejected.
“An attorney who devised ad attempted to implement a strategy to leverage the vice president’s ceremonial role overseeing the certification proceeding to obstruct the certification of the presidential election,” the indictment said of the person listed as “co-conspirator 2.”
Trump brought Sidney Powell onto his legal team to pursue false claims of voter fraud following the 2020 election.
She infamously made the bogus claim that Dominion Voting Systems machines swapped voter selections from Trump to Biden with the help of Smartmatic software. The charge was proven false.
“An attorney whose unfounded claims of election fraud the defendant privately acknowledged to others sounded ‘crazy,'” the indictment said of co-conspirator 3.
“Nonetheless, the defendant embraced and publicly amplified co-conspirator 3’s disinformation.”
Her false assertion about the voting machines led the Trump campaign to distance themselves from Powell and triggered a $1.3 billion lawsuit against her and Giuliani by the company.
Jeffrey Clark was a mid-level Justice Department official who planned to send election officials in several states a letter that falsely claimed that DOJ had “identified significant concerns” about votes in their states.
The letter would lead to Trump’s alleged “fake electors” scheme, suggesting that the official send “a separate slate of electors supporting Donald J. Trump” to Congress for consideration on Jan. 6, according to testimony from the hearing.
Clark proposed sending a letter to officials in key states that said the Justice Department had “identified significant concerns” about the vote and that the states should consider sending “a separate slate of electors supporting Donald J. Trump” for Congress to approve, according to hearing testimony from the House Jan. 6 Committee.
Ken Chesebro was the first Trump attorney to suggest the scheme to form groups of electors loyal to Trump in key states that Joe Biden won in 2020.
He later linked up with Eastman and Giuliani to help coordinate the bogus slates of electors in six swing states.
The indictment describes co-conspirator 5 as “an attorney who assisted in devising and attempting to implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding.”
He also plotted to get a case challenging Georgia’s election results before Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas because the conservative justice was their “only chance” to derail the congressional vote count certifying the election, he wrote in emails published in November.
“We want to frame things so that Thomas could be the one to issue some sort of stay or other circuit justice opinion saying Georgia is in legitimate doubt,” Chesebro wrote in a Dec. 31, 2020 message to his colleagues.
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The final co-conspirator listed in the indictment is a little less clear than the first five.
There are several possible individuals who could fit the allegations that prosecutors attributed to the political operative listed as co-conspirator 6, but the most likely individuals are Michael Roman or Boris Epshetyn.
Prosecutors described the final co-conspirator as “a political consultant who helped implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding.”
Michael Roman served as the Trump re-election campaign’s director of Election Day operations. He joined the effort to put forward the pro-Trump “fake electors” from swing states to submit to Congress.
However, CNN last month reported that Roman entered into a proffer agreement with prosecutors in special counsel Jack Smith’s office to avoid prosecution in exchange for cooperation.
Boris Epshetyn served as a special assistant to Trump in the White House and advised him during the 2020 presidential election.
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He testified last year before a Fulton County, Ga., grand jury investigating Trump’s alleged efforts to interfere in the Peach State’s tabulation of 2020 presidential election results.
Epshetyn stood alongside Giuliani and Powell as the two made false claims that the election results were a fraud during an infamous press briefing at the Republican National Committee headquarters after the 2020 election.