WASHINGTON, United States: Prosecutors on Tuesday pressed ahead with bombshell charges that he tried to overturn the 2020 US election after losing to Joe Biden. The new indictment of the 78-year-old Republican White House candidate is 36 pages long, down from 45 pages previously, and removes material affected by the immunity ruling from the conservative-dominated top court. It retains the same core, stating that Trump lost in 2020 but "was determined to remain in power" and attempted to subvert the results.

"The illegally appointed 'Special Counsel' Deranged Jack Smith, has brought a ridiculous new Indictment against me, which has all the problems of the old Indictment, and should be dismissed IMMEDIATELY," he posted on his Truth Social platform. The new indictment came three days before Special Counsel Jack Smith, who brought the charges against Trump, and lawyers for the former president had been set to file a schedule for pre-trial proceedings.

Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over the case, had also scheduled a status hearing for September 5. Trump's lawyers have been seeking to delay a trial until after November's election between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate. Trump is accused of conspiracy to defraud the United States.

'Private capacity'

It will be up to Chutkan, an appointee of former Democratic president Barack Obama, to decide which of Trump's actions regarding the 2020 election were official acts and which were unofficial acts subject to potential prosecution.

The new indictment drops references to Jeffrey Clark, a former senior Justice Department official who was one of six co-conspirators listed in the original indictment allegedly enlisted by Trump to press his false claims of election fraud.

The remaining co-conspirators, who include Trump's former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, "were acting in a private capacity," the indictment said, "to assist him in his criminal efforts to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election and retain power." Regarding the ruling on Trump's immunity, Supreme Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson said that she was "concerned" about the July verdict, according to an interview released by CBS news on Tuesday.

"I was concerned about a system that appeared to provide immunity for one individual under one set of circumstances, when we have a criminal justice system that ordinarily treats everyone the same," she said. Jackson was among three justices to dissent from the court's ruling.

Sentencing has been scheduled for September 18, but Trump's lawyers have asked for his conviction to be tossed, citing the Supreme Court immunity ruling, and sentencing to be delayed. The judge presiding over the documents case, Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, dismissed the charges on the grounds that Smith, the special counsel, was unlawfully appointed. Smith has appealed Cannon's ruling. — AFP