U.S. efforts to hold Donald Trump criminally responsible in a plot to overturn the 2020 election are gaining steam as the former president prepares to face federal charges in a Washington courtroom on Thursday while Georgia state prosecutors look poised to issue their own charges in coming weeks.

Trump – the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination – was indicted on Tuesday on four counts, including conspiring to defraud the U.S., obstructing an official proceeding and conspiring to deprive voters of their right to fair elections.

"Despite having lost, the defendant was determined to remain in power," the indictment said.

In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said the indictment "has awoken the world to the corruption, scandal & failure that has taken place in the United States for the past three years."

With speculation mounting about when the case could go to court after special counsel Jack Smith said he is seeking a "speedy trial," a Trump attorney weighed in to warn that rushing the process would only confirm to observers that the indictment is "about pure politics."

"The government has had three years to investigate this, and now they want to rush this to trial in the middle of a political season? What does that tell you?" said Trump attorney John Lauro.

Pence – a frequent participant in Trump indictment

Former Vice President Mike Pence, who confounded attempts by then-President Donald Trump to remain in power after losing the 2020 election, features prominently in the indictment charging Trump with orchestrating a plot to overturn the result.

In Smith's 45-page indictment of Trump handed down on Tuesday, Pence is a frequent participant in a narrative that includes detailed recollections of private calls and conversations.

The indictment describes Trump pressuring Pence to overturn or otherwise tamper with 2020 election results on a number of occasions in the weeks leading up to January 6.

On New Year's Day, Trump "called the Vice President and berated him" after learning Pence had opposed a lawsuit that sought to give the vice President the ability to reject or return votes to the states at the January 6 certification, the indictment says.

Pence "responded that he thought there was no constitutional base for such authority and that it was improper," the indictment reads. In response, it says, Trump told him "You're too honest."

Repeated legal woes

Trump, the first former U.S. president to face criminal charges, has been indicted on three separate occasions this year.

In June, Smith's office charged him in a separate case with illegally retaining classified documents after leaving the White House and obstructing efforts to retrieve them. 

Earlier this year, the Manhattan district attorney's office brought charges that he falsified business records to hide hush money payments to a porn star who claimed to have had an affair with Trump years ago.

Trump has pleaded not guilty in both cases and has portrayed those investigations, as well as the election probes, as part of a coordinated "witch hunt."

In Georgia, the district attorney in Atlanta, Fani Willis, has been investigating whether Trump and his associates illegally interfered with that state's election for more than two years. Willis, an elected Democrat, has signaled she intends to bring charges in that probe within the next three weeks.

Despite the steady drumbeat of scandal, Trump maintains a wide lead over a field of Republican rivals in the November 2024 presidential race, according to public opinion polls.

Strategists said that while the indictments could help Trump solidify support among Republican voters, who view the charges as bogus, they could prove more damaging among independent voters in the general election against Biden.

(With input from agencies)