The famous question during the Watergate hearings half a century ago was, "What did the president know, and when did he know it?" The newly unveiled criminal case against former President Donald Trump hinges in part on a variation of that question that might be summarized as: Did Trump know he lost the 2020 election? Or did he actually believe his own big lie about mass election fraud?

That tricky element — how to prove Trump's state of mind as he went about attempting to overthrow a valid national election — is just one of the challenges that faces special counsel Jack Smith as he pursues this historic case.

Notwithstanding the predictable, irresponsible chorus of attacks against the Justice Department from Missouri congressional Republicans and others who know better, the indictment handed up against Trump on Tuesday is a valid response to an unprecedented assault on democracy by a sitting president. Which makes it all the more urgent that prosecutors get it right.

The grand jury's four-count indictment alleges that immediately after the 2020 election, Trump and a half-dozen co-conspirators launched a multi-pronged effort to reverse the results through illegal means.

Republicans who point out that Democrats also challenged George W. Bush's 2000 election victory are being deeply disingenuous in that those challenges were conducted entirely within the court system. Trump's campaign, too, took that perfectly legal approach (dozens of times, all of which failed). But that's not why he was indicted.

The indictment accuses Trump of defrauding the United States, obstructing an official proceeding and conspiring to "oppress, threaten and intimidate" officials in order to deny Americans the right to have their votes counted.

Trump's alleged crimes go far beyond merely standing at a microphone on Jan. 6 and whipping up the mob. They include:

— Pressuring Georgia's secretary of state to "find" more than 11,000 votes for Trump so he could claim that state's electoral votes, even though Joe Biden clearly won the state;

— Recruiting false slates of electors to cast electoral votes for Trump in seven states that Biden won;

— Pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to use those fake electors to derail the rightful certification of the election results on Jan. 6;

— Attempting to install a new Justice Department head, Jeffrey Clark, who would wield the power of the office to help overthrow the election results — in part by drafting letters to state legislatures pressing them to throw out Biden electors chosen by the voters and replace them with Trump electors.

Notably, the facts regarding these and most of the other allegations aren't even in dispute. It has long since been established beyond any doubt that Trump did these things. Trump himself has admitted (even boasted about) some of them, such as his pressure on Pence.

The only question is whether his actions constituted crimes. That's the part that will come down largely to whether Trump understood that he was attempting to overturn not a fraudulent election but a valid one.

Toward that end, the indictment includes extensive examples in which Trump's inner circle told him repeatedly that he lost the election. That may or may not be enough to prove that Trump knew he was attempting to defraud Biden voters of their rightful outcome.

On one hand, Trump is almost certainly the most psychologically unstable president America has ever had. If anyone can pull off the I really did believe the delusional nonsense I was spouting defense, it's him.

On the other hand are passages in the indictment like the description of Trump haranguing Pence for refusing to go along with the scheme, saying: "You're too honest." It will be interesting to hear how the defense attempts to spin that one.

Of course, the spinning started almost immediately from Trump's die-hard defenders in Congress, whose knee-jerk reactions were as predictable as they were reckless.

"Biden DOJ unveils the latest effort to stop Trump from running against Biden," tweeted Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., further cementing his party's disturbing contempt for America's top law enforcement agency. Hawley's complaint that the indictment is "totally unprecedented in American history" is true but ignores the unprecedented nature of Trump's alleged crimes.

"(A) two tiered system of justice," alleged Missouri's other Republican senator, Eric Schmitt — echoing the exact, clearly coordinated phrase being publicly promoted by Rudy Giuliani and other top Trump lieutenants. Does Schmitt take his orders from Missouri or Mar-a-Lago?

Missouri Rep. Jason Smith, referring to Biden, declared without irony: "Never in our Nation's history has a President weaponized the federal government against his political opponent." Clearly he needs to read this indictment more carefully.

In fact, the 45-page document presents a sober, clearly articulated case that doesn't overreach. It doesn't formally charge Trump with inciting the Jan. 6 riot, despite a strong argument to be made that he did. It doesn't allege sedition, which Trump arguably committed but which would have required a daunting new level of evidence and risked the case becoming even more politically explosive than it already is.

And the indictment's language goes to lengths to stress that the case isn't just about what Trump said : Trump "had a right, like every American, to speak publicly about the election and even to claim, falsely, that there had been outcome-determinative fraud during the election and that he had won," it states. Even the biggest of lies is protected by the First Amendment.

What's not protected is a president's decision to take concrete action — ordering underlings to thwart official congressional proceedings, pressuring political officials to change election results, scheming to improperly seat fake electors — in attempting to deny voters their right to be counted.

"Despite having lost," the indictment states, "the defendant was determined to remain in power." That's the most succinct summary of Trump's offenses. And it's the ball on which the prosecution must keep its eye as the case moves forward.

REPRINTED FROM THE ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

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