Prosecutors with special counsel Jack Smith’s office have added new charges against former President Donald Trump in the case involving documents with classified markings discovered at this Florida resort of Mar-a-Lago, according to court papers filed in federal court Thursday evening.
A superseding indictment unsealed by the Justice Department lists multiple new counts against Trump, including: altering, destroying, mutilating, or concealing an object; and corruptly altering, destroying, mutilating or concealing a document, record or other object; and an additional charge of willful retention of national defense information.
Trump was previously charged with 37 felony counts, including 31 counts of willful retention of classified documents and one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice. He has pleaded not guilty and claimed the prosecution is a politically motivated “witch hunt” against him. Walt Nauta, the former president’s aide, was also charged in the case and pleaded not guilty.
The new document names a third defendant in the case: Carlos De Oliveira, a Mar-a-Lago property manager and former valet. He faces one count of altering, destroying, mutilating, or concealing an object; one count of corruptly altering, destroying, mutilating or concealing a document, record or other object; and one count of making false statements and representations during a voluntary interview with federal investigators.
He has been ordered to appear in federal court in Miami on Monday morning. An attorney for De Oliveira declined to comment, as did a lawyer for Nauta.
Steve Cheung, spokesman for the Trump campaign, claimed the new counts are part of an effort to damage Trump as he seeks the Republican presidential nomination and “nothing more than a continued desperate and flailing attempt by the Biden Crime Family and their Department of Justice to harass President Trump and those around him.”
The 32nd count of willful retention of national defense information in the superseding indictment stems from a document Trump showed to four people during a July, 21, 2021, meeting at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, according to the new filing. The indictment alleges that the document, which Trump had until mid-Jan. 2022, was marked TOP SECRET/NOFORN, and is described in the indictment as a “presentation concerning military activity in a foreign country.”
The superseding indictment notes that Trump was participating in a recorded interview with a writer and a publisher, and two of his aides were also present. The former president told the group he had a “plan of attack” from a senior military official. Trump characterized the document as “highly confidential” and “secret information” and noted that “as president I could have declassified it. … Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret.” The indictment also points out that neither the aides nor the writer or publisher had a security clearance.
The document, which CBS News reported was a Defense Department memo on Iran, was not part of the original 31 counts of retention of national defense information charged in Smith’s initial indictment.
Source: CBS NEWS
