Jack Smith just criminally indicted Donald Trump again

When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Presidents cannot be criminally prosecuted for official acts, it did not mean that Donald Trump was off the hook. It simply meant that any charges had to be stated within the context of unofficial acts.

Now Special Counsel Jack Smith has criminally indicted Trump again, this time with a four-count superseding indictment that reframes the original four charges against him. This opens the door for Trump to indeed go on federal criminal trial in Judge Tanya Chutkan’s courtroom in Washington DC. It’s almost certainly not going to happen before the election. But the trial is back in motion, and underscores the fact that Trump is going to prison after he loses this election.

This is also terrible optics for Donald Trump. At a time when he’s falling behind in the polls and failing to properly hit the campaign trail and he’s increasingly seen as non-viable, now he just got criminally indicted again. This ensures that the rest of the week’s headlines about Trump will be about what a criminal he is. Bring it on.