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[text/ruan jiaqi, observer network]

with just over two months left until the 2024 us election, republican candidate trump may once again be in legal trouble.

according to reuters and other reports on the 27th, jack smith, a special prosecutor of the u.s. department of justice who has been pursuing trump relentlessly after the court dismissed the prosecution in mid-july this year, asked the federal appeals court on monday local time to restore the criminal charges against trump for illegally possessing confidential documents after leaving office, in order to overturn the ruling that smith was illegally appointed and not qualified to prosecute.

in addition, smith's team filed a new indictment on tuesday regarding trump's alleged interference in the 2020 election, which was adjusted based on the u.s. supreme court's final ruling on president trump's immunity last month.

the new indictment reportedly retains four criminal charges against trump, but deletes some descriptions of his alleged behavior, and the new indictment has been reduced from 45 pages to 36 pages. however, reuters pointed out that it is "extremely unlikely" that the indictment will enter the trial stage before the november 5 election.

as the first former president in u.s. history to be criminally prosecuted, trump is involved in four criminal cases, including paying hush money to an actress before the 2016 presidential election, improperly handling confidential documents after leaving office, and interfering in the 2020 presidential election. he is charged with a total of 91 counts.

last month (july), the trump team won a series of "major legal victories": on the one hand, the us supreme court ruled that trump enjoyed a certain degree of presidential immunity from criminal prosecution, and instructed the lower courts to redefine which of trump's actions in the relevant cases were official acts that could be exempted from prosecution. this decision directly led to the postponement of the trial of the other three cases except the "hush money" case; on the other hand, florida federal district court judge erin cannon dismissed the prosecution of special prosecutor jack smith in the trump confidential documents case on the grounds that his appointment was "unconstitutional" and he had no right to file a lawsuit.

according to us media reports, on august 27 local time, jack smith filed a new indictment with the washington federal court, modifying the wording of the charges against trump, focusing the prosecution on trump seeking re-election as an ordinary political candidate rather than in his capacity as president at the time, while retaining the four core charges against trump.

the report said this means smith's team is continuing to push forward the case against trump by narrowing the charges to make them applicable to the supreme court's ruling on immunity.

the new indictment was reduced from 45 pages to 36 pages. it dropped the accusation that trump was corrupt in trying to pressure the u.s. department of justice to announce the election results during the 2020 election, and no longer mentioned trump's interactions with justice department official jeffrey clark and former u.s. attorney general bill barr.

the new indictment mainly retains key testimony and evidence from witnesses outside the federal government, such as rusty bowers, the former speaker of the arizona house of representatives, who testified that he was pressured by trump to hold a special hearing on the grounds of false voter fraud. however, the key allegation that trump tried to persuade then-vice president pence to obstruct biden's election certification process was retained.

the special counsel's office issued a statement on tuesday explaining the reasons for filing a new indictment. the statement said: "our new indictment filed with a new grand jury that has not heard evidence in this case reflects the government's efforts to respect and implement the supreme court's decision and remand instructions." it also emphasized that "the certification process of counting electoral votes is not the defendant's official responsibility, but as a presidential candidate, the certification process is indeed related to his personal interests."

smith's team also tried to restart another federal criminal case against trump. the day before (august 26), they asked the atlanta federal 11th circuit court of appeals to overturn florida judge erin cannon's ruling that smith's appointment was "unconstitutional" in order to continue the criminal charges against trump's confidential documents case.

they also asked the appeals court to schedule oral arguments and argued in a letter that "congress has given the attorney general and the heads of many executive departments broad authority to carry out the duties assigned to them by law," accusing judge cannon of "deviating from binding supreme court precedent" and "misinterpreting the law authorizing the appointment of special counsel."

trump's campaign said monday that the court should deny smith's request and dismiss other cases facing trump.

"not only should the unlawful prosecution in florida be dismissed, all political witch hunts should be dismissed immediately. the democratic justice department coordinated all of these political attacks as part of an election interference conspiracy against harris' political opponent, trump. let's work together to end all weaponization of our judicial system," trump campaign spokesman steven cheung declared in a statement.

trump called the new indictment filed by smith's office on tuesday "ridiculous" on his own social media platform "real social", and said the supreme court's immunity ruling should lead to the dismissal of the entire case. "smith rewrote the exact same case in order to bypass the supreme court's ruling." he wrote, "the people of our country will see what is happening with all these corrupt lawsuits against me, and will respond to it by giving me an overwhelming victory on november 5th."

according to the financial times, after the us supreme court made its final ruling on criminal immunity, of the four criminal cases filed against trump, only the one involving him paying "hush money" to pornographic actresses before the 2016 presidential election has entered the trial stage. trump was found guilty on may 30 this year, but his sentencing was also postponed due to the immunity ruling.

if the sentencing of the "hush money" case originally scheduled for september is successfully delayed, it means that trump may not face criminal prosecution before the november election, and his campaign will no longer be disturbed by court appearances.

this article is an exclusive article of observer.com and may not be reproduced without authorization.