Former President Donald Trump was indicted for an unprecedented third time on August 1, adding another set of serious federal charges to the mounting legal issues he faces.
What does it mean to be indicted?
It means he’s being charged with the crime by a grand jury, as opposed to a prosecutor. So he’ll be going on trial to see if he gets convicted.
A little easier to understand the significance:
A grand jury has ruled that the evidence presented is sufficient enough to warrant a trial to determine if a crime has been committed.
Typically grand juries are either random citizens (selected via jury duty), or volunteers within the community, depending on the city rules. They are not elected positions, nor are any legal qualifications required. It’s simply high level evidence, and descriptions of laws that may have been violated.
It’s not an indication of guilt, just that there’s enough of a question that is worth holding a trial to determine guilt.
Edit - at least, that’s what a grand jury usually is. I wouldn’t be surprised if federal charges on a former president requires more qualified grand jurors than the baker down the street, or retired carpenter with time to kill that comprises your typical grand jury
We aren’t the media here. We don’t have to play the “innocent until proven guilty or else he’ll sue us” game. The man clearly committed the crimes. He did it on national television. You can watch him tell people to “fight like hell” and tell them to march to the Capitol. It is an indisputable fact that he then did nothing to stop the insurrection until hours later.
Why the hell do you need a judge to rule to determine that he’s a criminal? The judge is there to tell us what, if any, punishment he’ll get.
This is just like people claiming he isn’t a rapist because the ruling in the Carroll case didn’t explicitly call it rape, when any reasonable person with a basic understanding of what rape is would understand that it’s rape even if that doesn’t fit the strict legal definition.
Trump is a criminal. He hoarded documents. He showed classified information to people who were not qualified to see it. He raped at least one woman. He fomented an insurrection. He tried to rig an election.
And you want a guilty verdict before admitting all of that? SMH.
