Trump pleads not guilty in Washington charges over 6 January riots conspiracy

Former United States President Donald J. Trump yesterday appeared in federal court in Washington on Thursday for the first time to face charges that he conspired to remain in office, despite his 2020 election loss.

He pleaded not guilty at a hearing in the same city where he is accused of conspiring, by fuelling supporters with his lies, to block the peaceful transfer of power.

Trump uttered a soft-spoken “not guilty” to each of the four counts lodged against him on Tuesday by Jack Smith, the special counsel.

He left court without paying any bail or agreeing to any travel restrictions. His first pre-trial hearing is set for 28 August.

The arraignment took place about six weeks after he entered another not-guilty plea in a Miami courtroom after being indicted on charges of illegally retaining classified documents at his resort in Florida and obstructing the government’s efforts to reclaim them.

Trump is under indictment in three separate cases as he is running for president again, even while currently leading his rivals for the 2024 Republican nomination by wide margins. In addition to the election case, he faces federal charges of mishandling classified documents and accusations in New York related to hush money payments to a porn star.

“This is a very sad day for America,” Tump said at the airport in Washington before boarding his plane back to his golf club in New Jersey. “This is a persecution of a political opponent. This was never supposed to happen in America.”

His personal aide, holding his umbrella for him as he emerged from his SUV on the airport tarmac, was also charged alongside him in the classified-documents case.

The indictment charges that Trump lied repeatedly to supporters promote false claims of fraud, sought to bend the Justice Department toward supporting those claims and oversaw a scheme to create false slates of electors pledged to him in states that Biden had won.

He is also said to have pressured his vice president, Mike Pence, to use so-called fake electors to subvert the certification of the election at a joint session of Congress on 6 January, 2021, that was cut short by the violence at the Capitol.

Trump was ordered by the judge Moxila Upadhyaya not to communicate about the case with any witnesses except through lawyers or in the presence of lawyers. The first hearing will be before trial judge Tanya S. Chutkan.

His lawyers chose 28 August for the trial, the lates of the three options available. Delaying the proceedings could allow Trump to effectively call off federal cases against him, if he wins the 2024 election.

Trump’s lawyers are expected to argue that their client had a First Amendment right to promote his view that the 2020 election was marred by fraud, making a case that he sincerely believed his claims that he had been robbed of victory. The argument could make it more difficult for prosecutors to establish that he intended to violate the law.

Trump might also say he was relying on advice from lawyers when he sought to block certification of Biden’s victory, and that it could seek to move the trial out of Washington — a Democratic stronghold — to a more politically friendly setting.

Outside the courthouse, security was heavy, with officers on foot and on horseback and barricades erected on the sidewalk. The crowd, made up of Trump’s critics and his supporters, clogged the area outside the courthouse, with some carrying pro-Trump signs and others shouting anti-Trump slogans, including “Lock him up!”.