The latest indictment against former President Donald Trump regarding his sweeping campaign to go against the will of the American public and overturn the 2020 election includes one charge under a civil rights law originally enacted to combat the terror and violence perpetrated by the Ku Klux Klan.
Special counsel Jack Smith charged Trump with four felony counts on Tuesday, including conspiracy to defraud the United States, obstruction of vote certification proceedings and conspiracy to interrupt such proceedings.
The fourth charge, of conspiracy to violate civil rights, was brought under a statute under the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act, which was aimed at protecting the public’s constitutional rights at a time when the U.S. was seeing a rise in brutal violence against Black people across the U.S.
In facing charges under the Ku Klux Klan Act, Trump is in the company of people like the white nationalists and neo-Nazis who rioted in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017; voter suppression activists like Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman; and, of course, KKK members themselves who, for many decades, have worked to perpetuate white supremacy and destroy civil rights in the U.S.
Due to a series of rulings by the Supreme Court in the mid-20th century, the legal interpretation of the KKK Act was expanded to cover election fraud conspiracies, especially as they pertain to voting by Black people and other marginalized groups.
White supremacists and the KKK indeed have a long and bloody history of trying to deter Black people from voting. KKK members would drop cards from airplanes in Black neighborhoods to prevent them from voting and — perhaps similarly to Trump militants’ actions at the polls in recent years — show up at polling places to intimidate voters.
The charge under the KKK Act is a reminder of the racist nature of Trump and his allies’ voter suppression efforts during the 2020 election and beyond.
Trump’s campaign to have votes overturned in states that went to Biden was similarly racially discriminatory. Lawsuits filed by Trump and his allies in 2020 particularly focused on overturning votes in majority-Black neighborhoods, where President Joe Biden had much higher support. Experts pointed out at the time that this was a blatant move to target Black voters in particular.
The latest charges against Trump, experts say, are extremely damning.
The 45-page indictment details how Trump and six unnamed co-conspirators “targeted a bedrock function of the United States Federal government: the nation’s process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election” through “pervasive and destabilizing lies about election fraud.”
It describes how, with evidence gathered from sources including notes from former Vice President Mike Pence, Trump and his alleged co-conspirators have had votes against him tossed, recruited fake electors to subvert the process, and then weaponized the Insurrection Act against protesters who rose up against Trump’s plot to install himself as president.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy