The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has issued an updated indictment, adding new charges and a third defendant to the classified documents case against former President Donald Trump.
On July 27, a grand jury in the Southern District of Florida issued a superseding indictment, which tacks on more charges against Mr. Trump and his aide, Walt Nauta, while also charging another employee of Mr. Trump with three offenses.
The former president was charged with an additional count of willful retention of national defense information, the indictment (pdf) says. All three defendants are also charged with two new obstruction counts arising from allegations that they attempted to delete Mar-a-Lago video surveillance footage.
The indictment alleges that Trump asked for the footage to be deleted after federal investigators visited the property in June 2022 to collect classified documents that he took with him after leaving the White House a year earlier. Law enforcement officials then issued a subpoena for surveillance footage from areas near a storage room and other areas at Mar-a-Lago after noticing the cameras while they were there.
The indictment quotes a Mar-a-Lago property manager, Carlos De Oliveira, telling a colleague that the “boss” wanted a server hosting the footage to be deleted. It says Mr. De Oliveira went to the IT office last June, took an employee to a small room known as the “audio closet” and asked the person how many days the server retained footage.
When the employee said he didn’t think he was able to delete footage, Mr. De Oliveira replied that the “boss” wanted it done, saying, “What are we going to do?” the indictment states.
Mr. De Oliveira, 56, of Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, was added as a defendant in the indictment. He was also charged with making false statements and representations during a voluntary interview with the FBI on Jan. 13. He has been summoned to appear at a federal courthouse in Miami at 10:30 a.m. on July 31.
By Janice Hisle
