Inside Jack Smith’s January 6th indictment against Donald Trump

Jack Smith’s January 6th criminal indictment against Donald Trump could be issued by the grand jury today, or next week, or maybe it happened yesterday under seal for all we know. It’s a mystery, but one that ultimately won’t matter, because the indictment will land very soon one way or the other. I’m more interested in what’s going to be inside that indictment.

I’m talking about the full text of the indictment, which if the pattern holds, the courts will likely unseal a few days after the grand jury issues it. That text won’t tell us the entirety of the criminal case against Trump. But it’ll give us several pages of evidence; think of it as a detailed summary. Why does this matter? Keep in mind what we already know.

People like Mike Pence and Mark Meadows have already testified against Trump to the grand jury, but we don’t know what they said. The indictment text could provide strong clues to what all really went on with these men behind closed doors leading up to January 6th. We might also finally get a definitive answer as to whether Meadows’ testimony was part of a cooperation deal, or if he was strictly testifying about things that fell outside the Fifth Amendment.

The text of the Trump indictment should also provide at least some clues as to whether Jack Smith is looking to indict any members of Congress. If they do get indicted, it would surely be as Trump’s co-conspirators. That doesn’t mean they have to be indicted at the same time as Trump. But it could point to who might be getting indicted after Trump is indicted, given that Jack Smith seems to be using a top-down strategy for his indictments in order to ensure that Trump gets to trial as quickly as possible.

The text of Jack Smith’s January 6th indictment against Donald Trump won’t tell us everything about the case, just as the text of Jack Smith’s Espionage Act indictment against Trump didn’t tell us everything about that case. Plenty gets strategically held back for trial. But it’ll be by far the biggest information dump thus far, in a Jack Smith January 6th probe that we still know remarkably little about – beyond the fact that Donald Trump is about to get indicted in it.