It’s nine pages shorter — but far stronger.
Donald Trump’s re-tooled election interference indictment, unveiled Tuesday by special counsel Jack Smith, proves that less really is more when it comes to charging a former president, a legal expert told Business Insider.
The previous indictment, which weighed in at 45 pages, had included what the US Supreme Court says is the kind of official-act evidence that can no longer be used in prosecuting presidents.
The replacement indictment — which uses the same font and spans 36 pages — removes references to Trump’s presidential acts with surgical precision, said Michael Bachner, a former Manhattan prosecutor and frequent commentator on Trump’s legal travails.
Both the previous and the new indictments charge Trump with the same federal counts of conspiracy and obstruction. But in the new indictment, it’s Trump the 2020 presidential candidate, not Trump the former president, who is charged.
Gone are all references to Trump conferring with officials from his Justice Department as he …