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:
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:
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