Three additional felony charges have been filed against Donald Trump over his theft of classified documents from the White House.
On Thursday, federal prosecutors presented evidence that Trump ordered the destruction of security camera footage at Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Florida, which showed the movement of the classified material.
The property manager, Carlos De Oliveira, was named as a third defendant, joining Trump and his personal valet Waltine Nauta. Oliveira will be arraigned in Miami on Monday.
In last month’s original indictment, filed in the Southern District of Florida, 37 felony counts were filed against Trump for violating the Espionage Act with possession of the documents, obstruction of the Government investigation, and making false statement. A 38nd count named Nauta over conspiracy to obstruct the investigations.
See also Trump Indicted On 37 Felony Counts Over Theft of Classified Documents and Obstruction
The new charges are for attempting to “alter, destroy, mutilate, or conceal evidence”; inducing someone else to do so; and, in a violation of the Espionage Act, showing a classified document to visitors to his golf club in New Jersey.
The new indictment was released hours after Trump’s lawyers met in Washington with prosecutors in the office of Special Counsel Jack Smith. They were discussing a “target letter”, sent to Trump this month, indicting that he might be indicted over his efforts to overturn the 2020 Presidential election.
Deleting Video, Showing Off A Top Secret Document
Prosecutors said that in late June 2022, soon after the Government sought surveillance footage as part of its inquiry, Trump called De Oliveira and spoke with him for 24 minutes.
Two days later, Nauta and Mr. De Oliveira “went to the security guard booth where surveillance video is displayed on monitors, walked with a flashlight through the tunnel where the storage room was located, and observed and pointed out surveillance cameras”.
A few days after that, De Oliveira took Yuscil Taveras, who oversaw the surveillance cameras, to a small “audio closet” and said, “The Boss wanted the server deleted.”
Taveras said he did not know how to delete the server and did not believe he had the right to do so. De Oliveira insisted that “The Boss” wanted the deletion and asked, “What are we going to do?”
In August, just after the FBI examined Mar-a-Lago under a search warrant and took away about another 100 classified documents, Nauta told another Trump employee, “Someone just wants to make sure Carlos is good.” The employee told Nauta that De Oliveira was “loyal” and “would not do anything to affect his relationship with Mr. Trump.”.
Trump then called De Oliveira and said that he would get him a lawyer.
The new indictment also details how Trump presented a top-secret battle plan to attack Iran to the visitors at his golf club in Bedminister, New Jersey.
Speaking with a writer and researcher helpf former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows with a book, Trump tried to present the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, as a warmonger.
An audio recording captured Trump telling his guests that the document is “highly confidential”, “secret”, “sensitive”.
