Trump asked staffer to delete footage at Mar-a-Lago in bid to obstruct classified docs probe, feds allege
Donald Trump told the property manager at his Mar-a-Lago resort to delete security camera footage in a bid to thwart federal investigators, prosecutors claimed in a superseding indictment that hits the former president with additional charges.
The 60-page filing submitted Thursday by prosecutors working for special counsel Jack Smith accuses Trump of three additional counts — two of which could earn him an additional 40 years in prison if convicted.
The property manager, Carlos De Oliveira, was also charged in the case, making him the third defendant alongside Trump and his valet Walt Nauta — who were both charged in an initial indictment on June 8 with conspiring to hide national security documents at the 77-year-old’s Palm Beach, Fla., home.
Thursday’s indictment identifies De Oliveira as the man who allegedly helped Nauta move approximately 30 boxes of classified documents into a storage room in Mar-a-Lago’s basement on June 2, 2022.
The week before, Nauta allegedly moved about 64 boxes “at Trump’s direction” out of the storage room and into the president’s estate in preparation for a search by Trump’s attorney, who was not privy to the scheme, the indictment claims.
On June 3, De Oliveira allegedly helped transport the boxes of classified documents to Trump’s Bedminster, NJ, residence while FBI agents combed the Palm Beach mansion.
After noticing surveillance cameras on the property — including near the storage room — federal agents sent Trump’s attorneys a draft grand jury subpoena requiring they hand over footage, prosecutors say.
Instead, Trump called De Oliveira on the night of June 24 and allegedly ordered him to wipe the cameras.
The next day, Nauta was directed to ditch his plans to travel with Trump to Illinois and make arrangements to head to Palm Beach, the documents state.
Nauta gave conflicting reasons for his change in travel plans, texting one person that he wouldn’t be joining Trump in Illinois “because he had a family emergency,” followed by “shushing” emojis, according to the docs.
When the valet arrived at Mar-a-Lago, he met with De Oliveira and the two men scoped out the locations of the cameras. Two days later, prosecutors say, De Oliveira pulled an IT worker aside for a private conversation, asking how long security footage was kept on a server.
After the IT worker said the storage time was believed to be 45 days, De Oliveira allegedly said “the boss” wanted the server deleted. When the worker balked and claimed only a security supervisor could do that, the indictment says, De Oliveira repeated that “the boss” had made the request and asked the employee: “What are we going to do?”
After the exchange with the IT worker, De Oliveira “walked through the bushes” on the perimeter of Mar-a-Lago to meet Nauta twice on a neighboring property, returning to the resort’s IT office in between.
Later on June 27, 2022, the filing says, Trump called the property manager and the two men spoke for three-and-a-half minutes.
It is unclear how much footage, or if any footage, was deleted from the server. In a filing last month, prosecutors revealed they had obtained both “complete copies of closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage” and “‘key’ excerpts” from the cameras.
On Aug. 26, after the FBI had searched Mar-a-Lago, prosecutors say, Trump called De Oliveira and promised to arrange an attorney.
The new indictment also charges Trump with retention of an Iran attack plan he shared at Bedminster in 2021 with writers and editors working on a book about his former chief of staff Mark Meadows.
The initial indictment included a transcript of Trump telling the writers: “As president, I could have declassified it. Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret.”
De Oliveira faces charges of conspiracy to obstruct justice; altering, destroying, mutilating, or concealing an object; corruptly altering, destroying, mutilating, or concealing a document, record, or other object and making false statements to investigators. He faces up to 65 years in prison if convicted.
Keeping track of all of Trump's indictments
Former President Donald J. Trump is expecting charges in relation to the federal investigation of the January 6, 2020, Capitol Riot. Here are all of the legal troubles Trump will face as he heads toward the 2024 election.
January 6th
- Attorneys for former President Donald Trump have been told to expect him to be indicted in connection to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.
- Trump’s lawyers met with prosecutors from special counsel Jack Smith’s office at the Justice Department on Thursday morning.
- He could face charges of conspiracy, civil rights violations, and obstruction of justice following a Justice Department investigation into his actions before and on Jan. 6, 2021.
Mar-a-Lago classified docs
- Donald Trump received 37 felony counts related to his storage of classified documents at his Mar-A-Lago resort.
- Trump is the first former president to receive a federal indictment.
- Trump is accused of taking around 11,000 documents, some containing sensitive national security secrets, and hoarding them in a haphazard manner at his Palm Beach, Florida estate.
Stormy Daniel’s ‘hush money’
- Trump was indicted by a New York grand jury in March over ‘hush money’ payments to porn star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 campaign.
- The former president is accused of falsifying business records in connection with the payments
- Trump’s then-lawyer Michael Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 in exchange for her silence about a sexual encounter she claimed the two had.
- Trump pleaded not guilty to the charges and is trying to have the case moved to federal court.
NY AG’s Tax Fraud suit
- New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a $250 million civil suit against former president Donald Trump and his Trump org. for unpaid taxes
- The lawsuit seeks to ban Trump and his three eldest children — Don Jr., Ivanka, and Eric — from conducting further business in New York, as well as a $250 million fine.
- The Trial is set for October.
In addition to retaining the Iran attack plan document, Trump was also charged with altering, destroying, mutilating, or concealing an object and corruptly altering, destroying, mutilating, or concealing a document, record, or other object in connection with his purported order to wipe the surveillance server. Each of the latter two counts carry a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.
In a statement, Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign dismissed the additional allegations as “nothing more than a continued desperate and flailing attempt” by the Biden administration “to harass President Trump and those around him.”
“Deranged Jack Smith knows that they have no case and is casting about for any way to salvage their illegal witch hunt and to get someone other than Donald Trump to run against Crooked Joe Biden,” the campaign said.
In his own reaction to the newest charges, Trump deflected attention to President Biden, who’s facing his own federal probe into his handling of classified material.
“Whatever happened to the Crooked Joe Biden Document’s case? He had 20 times more Boxes than I did, and he wasn’t covered by the Presidential Records Act. I was!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Special counsel Robert Hur launched an investigation into Biden after classified documents were found at his Delaware home and a private office in Washington, DC.
“When it first came out that Biden had all of these Docs, many Classified, almost everyone, including those on the Left, said, ‘there goes the case against Trump,'” Trump said in his social media post.
“But they waited and waited, got failed prosecutor Deranged Jack Smith, and STRUCK – but did almost nothing on the REALLY BAD Biden Documents case, many stored in Chinatown!”
The 45th president allegedly kept hundreds of documents stored throughout his Florida resort in places like “a ballroom, a bathroom and shower, an office space, his bedroom, and a storage room,” according to the Department of Justice.
Some of the documents allegedly detailed US weapons programs and defense weaknesses and plans to respond to a foreign attack, and Trump continued to hoard the files even after he was given multiple opportunities to hand them over to authorities.
With Post wires
