Donald Trump was hit with new obstruction charges in the criminal case over his handling of classified documents, including allegations that he and two employees attempted to delete surveillance video footage at his Mar-a-Lago estate last year.
(Bloomberg) — Donald Trump was hit with new obstruction charges in the criminal case over his handling of classified documents, including allegations that he and two employees attempted to delete surveillance video footage at his Mar-a-Lago estate last year.
In the latest indictment announced on Thursday, prosecutors accused Trump of directing employees to erase footage of a storage room where the documents were kept, days after his lawyers received a subpoena for any such recordings.
In addition to Trump’s personal valet, Waltine “Walt” Nauta, the new charges added a third defendant to the criminal case, Trump maintenance worker Carlos de Oliveira. De Oliveira referred to Trump as “the boss” and allegedly told another employee that “the boss” wanted a server with camera footage deleted. It wasn’t clear if those recordings were actually erased.
It also includes one additional count accusing Trump of willful retention of national defense information, referring to a “plan of attack” document the former president showed and described in a meeting at his Bedminister Golf Club in New Jersey.
In a recording quoted in both indictments, Trump allegedly jokes with the people around him about how he could have declassified the document when he was president, but “Now I can’t.”
Although the new indictment features fresh felony counts, they carry the same maximum penalties as the earlier charges — up to 20 years in prison, though Trump is likely to face far less than that if convicted given his lack of criminal history.
Prosecutors secured the latest indictment against Trump as other members of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office pressed ahead with a separate investigation into efforts by Trump and others to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Trump recently announced he’d received notice that he was a target in that probe.
Read More: Trump on Standby With No Grand Jury Indictment Thursday
Trump has pleaded not guilty in the Florida case and faces a May 20 trial. Another trial is set for March in New York, where he’s facing state charges alleging he falsified business records in connection with hush money payments to a porn star. Trump, who is campaigning for another term in the White House, is the first former president to face federal allegations of criminal conduct.
The Trump campaign criticized the most recent charges, calling them a “continued desperate and flailing attempt by the Biden Crime Family and their Department of Justice to harass President Trump and those around him.”
On Thursday two of his lawyers had a meeting at Smith’s office to discuss the probe into the 2020 election, according to a person familiar with the situation. The target letter and meeting fueled speculation that another federal indictment was imminent, but no charges have been announced to date.
Trump’s lawyers were expecting the former president to be indicted as soon as Thursday, Bloomberg News reported, but a Washington court official later announced no new indictments were expected from a grand jury that day.
The expanded indictment in Florida and the possibility of imminent federal charges over his attempt to overturn the 2020 election only deepen Trump’s legal exposure and scheduling obstacles as he presses ahead with his 2024 presidential campaign. He is also facing the prospect of charges from Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis over the 2020 election later this summer.
Deleted Footage
De Oliveira, 56, of Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, was charged with lying about his role in the handling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, efforts to obstruct the government’s efforts to retrieve them, and attempting to delete video footage.
On June 22, the Justice Department emailed a Trump attorney a draft grand jury subpoena for the video footage. On June 24, after DoJ emailed the final subpoena to Trump’s lawyers, Nauta received a text message saying Trump wanted to speak to him. Less than two hours later, Nauta abruptly changed his travel plans to fly to Palm Beach, Florida, instead of traveling with Trump to Illinois, according to the indictment.
In the days that followed, prosecutors alleged De Oliveira and Nauta worked together to assess the camera footage situation and told another employee to delete the server. The indictment also accuses De Oliveira of lying to federal investigators about moving boxes of documents.
“Okay, so you don’t know where items would have been stored, as soon as he moved back to Mar-a-Lago?” an agent asked, according to the indictment.
“No,” De Oliveira said. The government said the maintenance worker “personally observed and helped move Trump’s boxes” when they arrived at the resort in January 2021.
According to the new indictment, two weeks after the FBI discovered classified documents in the storage room in Trump’s office, Nauta asked another Trump employee if De Oliveira “is good.” Nauta was advised that he was loyal and that De Oliveira “would not do anything to affect his relationship with Trump.” That same day, prosecutors say, Trump called De Oliveira to tell him that he would get him an attorney.
Nauta was charged last month with corruptly concealing documents, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and making false statements.
Smith’s office has alleged that Trump engaged in relentless efforts to hide government documents from authorities, instructing aides to shuttle boxes of sensitive information at Mar-a-Lago from a ballroom to a bathroom to a storage room, as well as his office.
(Updates to add more details from the indictment. A previous story corrected the name of Carlos de Oliveira in second and fourth paragraphs.)
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