FORMER US PRESIDENT Donald Trump has been indicted again on four charges relating to his efforts to subvert the results of the 2020 US Election.

The latest filing, brought about by the US DOJ’s Special Counsel Jack Smith, is a second attempt by the United States’ Government to convict Trump on charges connected with incidents on 6 January 2021.

On that date, thousands of his supporters broke through police barriers in Washington D.C. in an attempt to block and stop the ratification of the 2020 US election results in the Capitol Building, housing the country’s Congress.

In new court documents, the US argues that Trump “spread lies” and “false claims” that he had won the election, which empowered the crowd to protest and attempt to stop the transition of power.

The previous case – where Trump was charged with the same four charges as this new filing – has been put on pause, and was practically quashed, following a Supreme Court decision last month, ruling Presidents have immunity and cannot be convicted for any alleged crimes they may have committed while carrying out official duties during their term in office.

In the new filing, the charges take into account that Trump cannot be charged with any alleged criminal offences he committed while undertaking official duties of the Presidency by arguing that the former leader danced between official and personal actions in the immediate aftermath of the 2020 election.

Personal actions included in the filing are the former President’s attempts to investigate the outcome of the election through the courts and issue legal challenges to contest the official count tallies.

The US lawyers rule that Trump did indeed have the right to make false claims about the outcome of the election and take such legal actions before the conclusion of the trials.

Though, the US attorneys argue, the continued false claims made by Trump following the “uniformly” failed legal challenges resulted to a conspiracy to defraud the United States “by using dishonesty, fraud, and deceit to impair, obstruct and defeat” the country’s court and judicial system.

Trump and his co-accused, who include a number of his former campaign employees, the attorneys continue, were also later involved in a conspiracy to “corruptly disrupt and impede” the formal processes which were taking place in Washington D.C. on 6 January 2021.

Finally, the attorneys argue, that Trump and his co-accused also sought to conduct a “conspiracy against the right to vote and to have one’s vote counted”, as is written in the country’s laws.

The argument says: “Each of these conspiracies – which built on the widespread mistrust [Trump] was creating through persuasive and destabilising lies about election fraud – targeted a bedrock function of the United States: [the Presidential Election].”

The four counts that Trump has today been indicted on again are; 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 former President, and many of his co-accused, have previously vehemently denied all charges and has claimed that his prosecution has been conducted under political pretenses.

Though the Supreme Court has granted Presidents immunity for official actions taken while in the Office of the Presidency, the new filings attempt highlight how Trump conducted himself in the private realm.

Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over the previous case, had scheduled a status hearing in the case for 5 September. It is not immediately clear if that will go ahead now, following the new filing.

It is very unlikely that the first sitting in either case will take place in an American court before the election on 5 November.