But that perspective — and the false claims of a stolen election Trump has been pushing alongside it — Bump argues, has presented the former president with a significant problem: a federal indictment brought by special counsel Jack Smith hinged on his efforts to overturn his electoral defeat that his attorneys have been battling in a Washington, D.C. federal court since it dropped in August.
In a court filing this week, Trump's attorneys argued that the former president is not at fault because others believed the election may have been undermined. They asserted instead that Russian election interference in 2016, the same subversion that Trump often deems "the Russia hoax," was at least in some part to blame for the distrust of the 2020 election results.
