Indianapolis, Indiana - As Donald Trump lashed out in response to his latest indictment, he faced more withering criticism from former ally and VP Mike Pence, who accused the ex-president of relying on "crackpot lawyers" for advice.

Donald Trump's legal woes are accumulating, with the latest being a 45-page indictment that argues he put the foundations of American democracy at risk by conspiring to overturn the 2020 election results.

A key figure in the indictment was then-vice president Mike Pence, who provided prosecutors "contemporaneous notes" that he took documenting the efforts to reverse the poll outcome.

Pence, who is likely to be a star witness in any eventual trial, offered unyielding criticism on Wednesday of Trump for pressuring him to thwart the will of the voters by refusing to certify Joe Biden's election victory at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

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Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol that day called for Pence to be hanged over his refusal.

While initially avoiding direct criticism, the ex-Indiana governor has been increasingly vocal in his condemnations of his former boss.

"Anyone who asks someone else to put themselves over the Constitution should never be president of the United States again," Pence, who is also running for the Republican nomination, told reporters in Indianapolis, echoing a statement he made in response to the indictment on Tuesday.

"I had no right to overturn the election and... what the president maintained that day and frankly, has said over and over again over the last two and a half years, is completely false."

"Sadly the president was surrounded by a group of crackpot lawyers who kept telling him what his itching ears wanted to hear," he added.

Trump spent part of the morning playing golf at his Bedminster, New Jersey, club, according to CBS TV broadcast images. He also vented online about the new indictments, the third time he has been criminally charged this year, keeping up his refrain that the election was rigged.