Feds File Superseding Indictment Adding Charges Against Trump And Additional Defendant in Florida Case
Additional count of willful retention of National Defense Information and two new obstruction counts including trying to delete security camera footage
The Department of Justice has filed a Superseding Indictment adding additional charges against Donald Trump and an additional defendant.
It also adds a separate Count 32 as to the Iran Attack Plans document previously described in the original indictment. I have cautioned you about people who mislead particularly Trump supporters with conspiracy theories and conjecture. One such thing was that the Iran Attack Plans document does not exist so couldn’t be charged.
Fox News summarizes:
Former President Trump was charged with an additional count of willful retention of National Defense Information and two new obstruction counts as part of a superseding indictment out of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into his alleged improper retention of classified records.
“Today, a superseding indictment was returned by a grand jury in the Southern District of Florida that adds one defendant and four charges to the prior indictment filed against Donald J. Trump and Waltine Nauta,” the Justice Department said in a statement Thursday. “The superseding indictment adds a new Count charging Trump with one additional count of willful retention of National Defense Information.”
“Carlos de Oliveira, 56, of Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, has been added to the obstruction conspiracy charged in the original indictment,” the DOJ said. “The superseding indictment also charges Trump, De Oliveira and Nauta with two new obstruction counts based on allegations that the defendants attempted to delete surveillance video footage at The Mar-a-Lago Club in summer 2022.”
The Justice Department is accusing former President Trump of attempting to delete surveillance footage at his Mar-a-Lago property in a new superseding indictment filed in the classified records case on Thursday.
DOJ says Trump acted with a new co-conspirator to try to delete the footage, and also charged him with an additional Espionage Act charge.
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, met in person just off the Mar-a-Lago grounds and that Trump called De Oliveira later that day. There is no indication of what was said in the phone calls.
Here are some of the new key allegations about the security camera footage:
And the additional related Counts:114. From on or about June 22, 2022, through in or around August 2022, in Palm Beach County, in the Southern District of Florida, and elsewhere, the defendants,
DONALD J. TRUMP,
WALTINE NAUTA, and
CARLOS DE OLIVEIRA
did knowingly corruptly persuade and attempt to persuade another person, with intent to cause and induce any person to alter, destroy, mutilate, and conceal an object with intent to impair the object’s integrity and avai lability for use in an official proceeding; that is-TRUMP, NAUTA, and DE OLIVEIRA requested that Trump Employee 4 delete security camera footage at The Mara-
Lago Club to prevent the footage from being provided to a federal grand jury.
***
116. From on or about June 22, 2022, through in or around August 2022, in Palm Beach County, in the Southern District of Florida, and elsewhere, the defendants,
DONALD J. TRUMP,
WALTINE NAUTA, and
CARLOS DE OLIVEIRA
did corruptly alter, destroy, mutilate. and conceal a record, document and other object and attempted to do so, with the intent to impair the object’s integrity and availability for use in an official proceeding; that is- TRUMP, NAUTA, and DE OLIVEIRA requested that Trump Employee 4 delete security camera footage at The Mar-a-Lago Club to prevent the footage from being provided to a federal grand jury.
***
119. On or about January 13, 2023, in Palm Beach County, in the Southern District of Florida, and elsewhere, the defendant,
CARLOS DE OLIVEIRA,
in a matter within the jurisdiction of the executive branch of the United States government, did knowingly and willfully make a materially false, fictitious, and fraudu lent statement and representation; that is-in a voluntary interview during a federal criminal investigation being conducted by the FBI, DE OLIVEIRA was asked the fo llowing questions and gave the fo llowing false answers:
120. The underscored statements and representations above were fa lse, as DE
OLIVEIRA knew, because DE OLIVEIRA had personally observed and helped move
TRUMP’s boxes when they arrived at The Mar-a-Lago Club in January 2021.
This is also really important – I have cautioned you about people who mislead particularly Trump supporters with conspiracy theories and conjecture. One such thing was that the Iran Attack Plans document does not exist so couldn’t be charged. The feds have added a separate count as to such document:
2. Big deal:
The Iran attack plan document Trump shared with others at Bedminster is now included as another charge.
In other words, yes, it was a classified document that exists. And Trump retained and shared it, per the new Indictment.
— Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw) July 27, 2023
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Comments
Going after the maintenance man. Unbelieveable.
Carlos de Oliveira is a property manager not maintenance.
“A property manager is hired to handle the day-to-day operations of a property. This includes responsibilities like collecting rent from tenants, setting rent prices to fit the market, seeking out and approving new tenants, coordinating leases ….”
That makes all the difference!
By the way, Reuters, USA Today and Daily Mail, among others, refer to him as a maintenance worker or supervisor. Apparently, he was a valet before then until late 2022. To compare him at Trump’s proerty to the guy that manages a 20 unit apartment is silly. Strange quibble.
LI referred to him as a property manager. You calling him a maintenance man portrays someone with lesser authority and liability. A maintenance man or maintenance supervisor trying to give orders to IT to delete a server doesn’t pass the smell test so the higher position of property manager makes more sense.
I did check and news sites are inconsistent about his actual position and job history. The one that seems the best is WaPo which says “De Oliveira has worked for Trump for nearly 20 years, beginning as a car valet and becoming a property manager in January 2022.” Working up through the ranks over twenty years to a position that the owner would trust for the alleged coverup attempt is believable.
The original comment was facetious. Engaging in semantics is silly. You originally made this guy the manager for the whole place, the rent collector! Keep arguing about this important topic, please.
Any confusion about whether to view a post literally v figuratively or metaphorically is on the person writing the post. Simply using /S clears it up.
If people cannot figure it out from the words, that’s on them. Will trigger warnings be next?
Here, the response to quibble about the man’s job position was silly, plain and simple.
As is your admonishment .
Huh, if that works for you then cool beans.
I was taught that if you want to effectively communicate then you have to take responsibility to ensure you are communicating effectively to the audience.
Not interested in one person that intentionally misinterpreted by playing word games.
I was responding to your facetious post by being facetious myself. I’m surprised you didn’t recognize that.
And everyone needs to take into account that the DOJ has an unblemished record in the fair and equitable administration of justice. They never let biased political motives interfere with their actions. Coupled with that Jack Smith is renewed for his fairness and reasonable application of the law. Oh and always note that whatever the government alleges is true, have they ever misrepresented the facts on anything?
I want to hear more about how the DE judge slapped down the collusion between the DOJ and Hunter’s attorneys. Blow up the damn feds. Bigly.
We have been taken over by the Bolsheviks, making up crimes for opponent’s and letting Deep State and cronies free.
Burn it all to the ground!
“Delete security camera footage.”
Are these the same cameras the FIB demanded be shut down during their brazen raid on Mar-a-lago?
As is usual here on LI, almost no commentator will read the whole post by Professor Jacobson. They will just pontificate after reading a summary while sitting on their fat asses, And they will do absolutely nothing themselves to make any changes afterwards , because that means they will have to get off of their fat asses and do something. And they will never do that, because all they know how to do is to type angry comments here on this blog, typing comments which no one will ever read. No one in power cares what you post here. But they do care what Professor Jacobson and his editors post here. So go get a life and do something with it.
Says the antitrumper… jr
So, JR, what’s your plan of action? Get off your fat ass and do something? Posting on this blog, typing comments that I wish I hadn’t bothered to read?
You already have a life and you’re doing something with it? Do tell.
His plan is to bitch about Trump in almost every post.
He may be the down vote fairy…
Ha ha ha, LOL, Made my day.
I did that to pull your chain…. 🙂
JR’s fat head is worse than his fat ass. I might have called IT a Nathaniel, but discoveries have shown that they were probably comparatively smart, light skinned and that we carry their DNA,
You seem guilty of the very things you lecture about, probably down to the size of your posterior.
Criminals at DOJ & FBI are desperate to take Trump out because if Trump wins they will be in deep shit, not just loss for their jobs, rather hard time in jail and loss of most or all of their assets, There should not be any mercy.
Amazing how charges like this pop up right when Hunter makes the news with yet another case of DOJ favoritism or a witness speaks out about his bribery spree.
You nail it. Distraction is the game here. Has always been. Ukrine – impeachment. Border – Wall, Election Fraud – Pandemic and J6. It is becoming painfully obvious that they can’t keep this in a box anymore. Like the Ukrines, we are all caught in the cross fire of these New World Order elites. I see BF got off with his illegal financial crap today.
Thanks for posting the court docs! I at least like to stay on top of the BS facts. Any bets that Hunter gets pardoned?
The professor is focusing on the squirrel.. I trust his analysis, 100% even if I don’t like it.
Does the Professor expect Donald Trump to be convicted and imprisoned?
Are those, in addition, the outcomes that he wants?
I hope I’m misunderstanding, but it does seem to be the net impact of this series of updates.
Did Trump deny the document existed, or that the document was not in the papers he rustled in the audio? He mentioned it’s existence, didn’t he? If so, is it accurate to point at “people who mislead particularly Trump supporters with conspiracy theories and conjecture. One such thing was that the Iran Attack Plans document does not exist so couldn’t be charged.”
People that mislead are everywhere, full of conjecture and conspiracy theories. Why single out Trump supporters when there are likely others that similarly thought the same thing? Does it even matter what Trump supporters think when it comes to charging?
What is true here is that the likes of Smith can and will charge ANYTHING. He has a track record of misconduct and poisoning the record in advance. Not to mention the corrupt president and DOJ that direct him.
It’s not only Trump supporters that see the utter corruption of the process, and question the credibility of those whose objective is to deny Trump from running.
The ray of sunshine here is that unless something changes he will be tried in front of a jury pool from a county that largely voted for him. All it takes is one honest objective juror with guts to vote not guilty and Trump ends up with a hung jury. Perhaps the Feds will try again but if it is after the ’24 election they may no longer see any need or if Trump is elected the Feds will almost certainly withdraw charges and Smith will be fired.
My hope is that if Trump is elected a special counsel is appointed to go after the brazen Federal prosecutors that targeted prolife, protestors, nonviolent J6 protestors who simply walked into the open capital sometimes waved in by police, and Trump associates, attorneys etc. The prosecutor needs to operate out a court in middle America with a non-Obama/Bush appointed judge to avoid the kangaroo courts in DC.
So in other words you are admitting it isn’t a kangaroo court.
I. I notice they still haven’t presented the “Iran document”. Unless they field it under seal, but it should still show up on the docket.
2. The claim is that Trump did this in NJ. Does a court in Florida even have jurisdiction? Though I’m not sure Trump wants it moved to NJ, he will find Florida a more friendly jurisdiction.
If you order actions to be executed in Florida then it makes perfect sense that your act of giving those orders is within Florida’s jurisdiction.
And for Biden having documents for 20 plus years … that he had NO legal right to ever have… unlike Trump that there there is a legal precedent for… documents he did not run and turn over as soon as discovered … which they like to pretend is the case… because he moved them over and over and over again…. ZERO CHARGES
What appears to be missing in this,”analysis” is the fact, supported by the Presidential Records Act and Judicial Watch v National Archives, is that Smith’s case is based on these records, which are Trump’s personal property, are somehow not his and he is in illegal possession of them, which is blatantly false. If it is illegal for a former president to possess national defense documents, then every living former president is guilty as they all have them in their libraries
If your position is accurate then the motion to dismiss will be granted, either by the Trial Judge or upon appeal. Has a motion to dismiss based this position been filed and if not why not?
It is correct, but the question is does Cannon have the balls to dismiss,..BTW, all these cases against Trump are bogus,..unless you can tell me what business record is required for payment with a personal check, and no law is violated by asking for an election audit,…still wondering how Trump could commit a crime in GA when he wasn’t even in the state?
I may be wrong but read elsewhere that the charges were filed under the espionage act to avoid the classification issue i.e. personal records, presidential authority to declassify.
The espionage act was passed in the lead up to the first world war by Woodrow Wilson and the progressives aided by the big business establishment GOP to silence and prosecute opponents of the draft and the war. Of course, that is exactly what they did intimidated many publications shutting down at least one and prosecuting many people for protesting against the draft. I read that one person was actually executed in Oklahoma.
It seems to me as a non-lawyer that they are trying to say that the espionage act cancels the right of a president to keep his personal papers or declassify documents if they related to national security or foreign military matters, etc. if the DOJ so decides.
but, under Article 2, if the head of the executive branch cannot make that determination as to what is and is not national defense information, who can, a lesser employee of the executive branch?
You read incorrectly because Trump never declassified any of the documents in question.
If you as a boss could give your employees the day off, and you say nothing to anyone you have not given them the day off.
There is no such thing as declassification without telling anyone else, in word or writing.
Orders must be communicated or they don’t exist stop being a cultist.
Glad you are confident about your position but the question remains unanswered. Has a motion to dismiss based upon your position been filed? If not why not?
It would fail, what he said would rely on Trump actually declassifying the documents which would require an order, either spoken, or written or at least existing in some form.
There is no such thing as an order without it being communicated in any job including president.
Will this delay the trial even more? Adding a new defendant can’t possibly speed things up.
To keep Trump out of office the nevertrumpers will destroy the entire country if they have to.
None of these are legitimate charges. Not one.
They are Stalinist/Maoist tactics.
There is now only one proper answer to all this.
Saw somewhere the the new indictment person was done in June. Why are they announcing it now. 🙂
Got a time question. From the looks of the charge, the supposed discussion took place in the only location a security camera would not catch it (i.e. in the control room), and involved security footage the DOJ had *ALREADY* taken during the raid. At that point, any footage left behind is either a copy, or demonstrably something the DOJ did not consider ‘evidence’ (and considering they stole clothes and magazines during the raid, that’s a broad brush). Knowing the FBI, it would not shock me in the least to find they had planted backdoors in the server and their own data stream from the cameras to give them 24/7 access to Trump’s entire life, every minute, every scratch, every cough.
In a similar situation, I would consider making a reference copy of the seized footage, wiping the server, removing every camera, and replacing the whole security system with new units that can be verified as intrusion-free because what the FBI can break into, so can the DNC and the PRC (but I repeat myself).