LEGAL
Trump charged with new crimes in classified
documents case
In a revised indictment, prosecutors accused Trump of
seeking to erase security camera footage at Mar-a-Lago.
By KYLE
CHENEY and JOSH GERSTEIN
07/27/2023
06:33 PM EDT
Updated:
07/27/2023 09:39 PM EDT
Special
counsel Jack Smith has brought three new felony charges against former
President Donald Trump, including explosive claims that he asked an employee of
his Mar-a-Lago club to delete security camera footage sought by investigators
probing his handling of classified documents.
In a
60-page superseding indictment unveiled Thursday, prosecutors also accused
Trump of possessing a highly classified war plan that he shared with people
lacking security clearances months after his presidency ended. And prosecutors
added a third defendant: Carlos De Oliveira, a worker at Mar-a-Lago who is
accused of joining Trump and aide Walt Nauta to seek the destruction of the
security footage.
The
additional charges are another stunning chapter in prosecutors’ case against
the former president, who has repeatedly professed that he “quickly” shared all
security camera footage from his estate with the government.
Trump now
faces two new obstruction-of-justice charges related to the alleged attempt to
erase the security camera video. In addition, the new indictment adds a felony
count under the Espionage Act stemming from his alleged possession of the war
plan. He now faces 32 counts of willfully retaining national defense
information under the Espionage Act and eight counts related to alleged efforts
to obstruct the investigation.
The new
indictment alleges that on June 27, 2022, De Oliveira met with a Trump
Organization employee in an audio closet at Mar-a-Lago and asked that person —
unnamed in the indictment — to delete the security camera video sought by
prosecutors in a grand jury subpoena days earlier.
“De
Oliveira told [the employee] ‘the boss’ wanted the server deleted,” the new
indictment alleges. The employee “responded that he would not know how to do
that, and that he did not believe he would have the rights to do that,” the
indictment adds.
Prosecutors
claim that when the employee said a supervisor would need to be involved, De
Oliveira repeated that “the boss” wanted the server deleted and De Oliveira
then asked: “What are we going to do?”
The
indictment indicates that De Oliveira spoke by phone and texted with Nauta, a
longtime Trump aide who is also a defendant in the case, shortly after the
exchange with the unnamed employee. De Oliveira and Nauta met in person just
off the Mar-a-Lago grounds, and Trump called De Oliveira later that day, the
indictment alleges. There is no indication of what was said in the phone calls.
De
Oliveira, 56, of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., is scheduled to be arraigned Monday
in Miami federal court, according to a court docket. Trump and Nauta will also
need to be re-arraigned on the new indictment, but it’s unclear when that will
take place.
Smith’s
team first obtained criminal charges against Trump and Nauta in Florida last
month. They accused Trump of hoarding boxes containing classified documents at
his Mar-a-Lago residence after he left the White House and attempting to thwart
the government’s efforts to retrieve them, and they accused Nauta of helping
Trump obstruct the investigation.
The updated
indictment does not merely add new criminal charges and a new defendant; it
also shows prosecutors making a concerted effort to undercut some of Trump’s
recent public denials of the case they’ve brought against him. And it adds
significant new elements to the legal peril he faces and underscores
prosecutors’ deep penetration into his cloistered inner circle.
In a
separate investigation, Smith’s team appears to be on the verge of indicting
Trump in Washington, D.C., for his efforts to subvert the results of the 2020
election. Trump also faces criminal charges in Manhattan for falsifying
business records in connection with a hush money scheme.
The new
indictment in the Florida case adds new details about Trump’s alleged handling
of the classified war plan, believed to be a plan of attack on Iran. It alleges
that, on July 21, 2021, Trump shared the plan at his club in Bedminster, New
Jersey, with two people working on a book being written by his former chief of
staff, Mark Meadows. In the original indictment, prosecutors had revealed they
had a recording of that conversation, but they hadn’t yet charged Trump with
possessing the document.
The new
indictment charges that Trump also had that classified war plan at his
Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla. It does not specify how the document
reached either location.
Trump has
publicly denied showing the actual document to the researchers, instead
claiming he had shown them news clippings.
“I didn’t
have a document, per se,” Trump said in a Fox News appearance last month.
“There was nothing to declassify. These were newspaper stories, magazine
stories, and articles.”
Each of the
new obstruction-of-justice charges carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in
prison. The charge of willfully retaining national defense secrets is
punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
Due to the
operation of federal sentencing guidelines and the sheer volume of charges
Trump already faced, the new charges may not significantly affect Trump’s
bottom-line sentence if he is convicted and given prison time. But they are
likely to bolster the narrative prosecutors can present to a jury — and the
public.
In a
statement Thursday night, the Trump campaign called the new charges “desperate
and flailing” and said Smith is “casting about for any way to salvage” the case
against him.
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