Former United States President Donald Trump has been summoned to appear in court on Thursday in Washington, D. C., where he will be placed under arrest for the third time and enter a plea before a judge.

Trump was indicted by the grand jury convened by special counsel Jack Smith to investigate Trump and his allies’ attempts to overturn the 2020 election.

Prosecutors will outline the four conspiracy and obstruction counts Trump faces and a judge will set bail conditions in the latest criminal case before the former president, weeks after he was charged with retaining national defence information.

The judge will also set out a schedule for pretrial motions and discovery. Both sides are likely later to file motions seeking to shape what evidence and legal arguments will be permitted at the eventual trial, which could be many months away.

Trump has been charged with four counts: conspiracy to defraud the United States “by using dishonesty, fraud and deceit to obstruct the nation’s process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election”; conspiracy to impede the Jan. 6 congressional proceeding; a conspiracy against the right to vote and to have that vote counted; and obstruction of, and attempt to obstruct and impede, the certification of the electoral vote.

Members of the grand jury met at the courthouse earlier yesterday. The members left around 2 p.m., according to NBC News report.

Five of the six alleged co-conspirators, based on details provided in transcripts of testimony to the Jan. 6 Committee and other records, appear to be: longtime Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani; lawyer John Eastman, who helped architect the “fake electors scheme”; attorney Sidney Powell, who helped lead Trump’s post-campaign legal efforts; former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, whom Trump considered making his attorney general; and Kenneth Chesebro, another attorney pushing the “fake electors scheme.” It is not clear who co-conspirator 6 is.

Trump announced on July 18 that he received a letter from special counsel Jack Smith notifying him he was the target of a grand jury examining the Jan. 6 riot and the 2020 election.

USA TODAY reports that the former president was previously indicted in a federal case related to his alleged mishandling of classified documents. Prior to that, a Manhattan grand jury in New York indicted him for allegedly falsifying business records in connection with hush money payments made to two women. He pleaded not guilty in both cases.

Prosecutors in Georgia are also eyeing a potential indictment over his efforts to overturn the state’s 2020 presidential election outcome. The decision in the case could come by Sept. 1.

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