Former President of the United States, Donald Trump is facing new criminal charges after prosecutors accused him of ordering employees to delete security camera footage at his estate to hinder an investigation into the mishandling of classified documents.
Africa Today News, New York reports that US federal prosecutors yesterday announced three new charges against Trump, including obstruction and willful retention of national defence information, bringing the total number of counts against the Republican in the case to 40.
According to court documents, Carlos De Oliveira, a 56-year-old maintenance worker at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, has been charged by prosecutors with conspiracy to obstruct justice, lying to investigators, and destroying documents. De Oliveira is the second employee of Trump to face federal criminal charges, along with the former president. In June, Trump’s valet, Walt Nauta, was also indicted, simultaneously with the previous Republican leader.
Thursday’s updated grand-jury indictment also includes new charges against Nauta, including allegations that he and De Oliveira tried to suppress evidence by deleting Mar-a-Lago surveillance footage.
It accuses the three men of endeavouring to “alter, destroy, mutilate and conceal” records at Mar-a-Lago to “impair” their use as evidence.
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The new indictment also contains a charge related to an alleged incident at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
US news media had previously reported that, in 2021, Trump had bragged about top-secret records outlining a proposed attack on Iran. In an audio recording of the incident, Trump can be heard telling those around him, “Isn’t it amazing? I have a big pile of papers.”
He also played up the fact that the documents he is showing off are “highly confidential, secret”.
“See, as president, I could have declassified. But now I can’t,” Trump said in the recording, seeming to acknowledge the sensitive nature of the documents. He has since made broad claims that he did declassify the documents he is accused of retaining illegally.
Referencing the Bedminster incident, Special Counsel Jack Smith – who is leading the federal investigations into Trump – added a count of willfully retaining national defence information under the Espionage Act.
Several of the new charges stem from another interaction described in the indictment, featuring De Oliveira and Nauta.
De Oliveira is accused of approaching a fellow Mar-a-Lago employee, Yuscil Taveras, in June 2022 about deleting the server containing security camera footage from the resort.
That was after Trump received a subpoena to surrender any additional classified records.
De Oliveira allegedly took Taveras into a room called the ‘audio closet’ and asked him how long Mar-a-Lago’s servers retained video surveillance imagery.
Telling Taveras that “the boss” wanted the server wiped, De Oliveira reportedly asked him, “What are we going to do?”
According to the updated indictment, Taveras told De Oliveira he did not know how to wipe the server and did not know if he was allowed to.