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WASHINGTON (AP) -- Hush-money payments. Classified records. And now, his efforts to overturn the 2020 election that led to the Capitol attack.
Already facing criminal cases in New York and Florida, Donald Trump faces increasing legal peril as investigations into his struggle to cling to power after his election loss appear to be coming to a head.
A target letter sent to Trump by special counsel Jack Smith suggests he may soon be indicted on new federal charges, adding to the remarkable situation of a former president up against possible prison time while vying to reclaim the White House as the frontrunner for the Republican nomination in 2024.
Smith's wide-ranging probe into the chaotic weeks between Trump's election loss and his supporters' attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, seems to be nearing an end just as another case could be on the horizon.
A grand jury that was sworn in this month in Georgia will likely consider whether to charge Trump and his allies for their efforts to reverse his election loss in the state.
Trump has denied wrongdoing in all the cases and dismissed the prosecutions as a malign effort to hurt his campaign.
WHAT IS THE
FOCUS OF THE
JAN. 6 PROBE?
The team led by Smith, who was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland in November, has questioned a host of former White House officials, Trump allies, lawyers and state election officials both in voluntary interviews and before the grand jury that has been meeting behind closed doors in Washington. Those who have testified before the grand jury -- which would ultimately hand down any indictment -- include Trump's Vice President Mike Pence, who has spoken extensively in public about the former president's efforts to pressure him into rejecting President Biden's electoral victory.
Smith's team appears to be interested in a late night Dec. 18, 2020, White House meeting one aide has called "unhinged" in which Trump's private lawyers suggested he order the U.S. military to seize state voting machines in an unprecedented effort to pursue his false claims of voter fraud. In videos shown by the U.S. House Committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack, one White House lawyer said he thought the idea was "nuts."
Judges -- including some appointed by Trump -- uniformly rejected his claims of voter fraud.
Smith has also questioned witnesses about schemes by Trump associates to enlist electors in battleground states to sign certificates claiming that Trump -- instead of Biden -- had won their states.
The fake electors' certificates were mailed to the National Archives and Congress, where some Republicans used them to try to justify delaying or blocking certification of the election.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
It's unclear when Smith's investigation may wrap up. Trump said he was invited to appear before the grand jury this week, though targets of investigations don't have to testify and rarely agree to do so. The grand jury, which meets in secret, would ultimately vote on whether there is enough evidence to charge him with a crime.
Among the potential charges legal experts have said Trump could face are conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstruction of an official proceeding: Congress' certification of Biden's electoral victory.
If charged in the Jan. 6 case, Trump could face a challenging jury pool in overwhelmingly Democratic Washington, whose residents -- many of whom work on Capitol Hill -- had a front-row seat to the chaos that unfolded after Trump urged his supporters to "fight like hell."