Fort Pierce - Friday July 28, 2023: Former President Donald Trump has been indicted on three additional charges in the Fort Pierce classified documents case that accuses him of violating the Espionage Act by taking and refusing to return classified documents when he left office.
Special Prosecutor Jack Smith filed a superseding indictment with the Federal Court here in Fort Pierce on Thursday. The new allegations add fresh detail to the 32 felony counts he already filed against Trump last month. Smith has also added a new defendant, Carlos De Oliveira, the property manager at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate.
The former President is now accused of trying to “alter, destroy, mutilate, or conceal evidence," and of inducing another person to do so.
Trump is alleged to have schemed with De Oliveira and Trump butler Walt Nauta to delete footage from his Florida estate video cameras that showed boxes of documents being moved in an effort to obstruct the federal investigation into his possession of those classified documents.
A third count also accuses Trump of willfully retaining national defense information related to a presentation about military activity in another country.
The superseding indictment includes the following new items:
- Attempting to delete security footage at The Mar-a-Lago Club to conceal information from the FBI and grand jury
- Identifies De Oliveira as the person who helped (alleged co-conspirator and Trump aide Walt) Nauta move approximately 30 boxes from Trump’s residence to the Storage Room on June 2, 2022
- Alleges that De Oliveira was one of the “others” identified in ... the original indictment who, on June 3, 2022, with Nauta, “loaded several of Trump’s boxes along with other items on aircraft that flew Trump and his family north for the summer”
- Alleges how the defendants attempted to delete surveillance footage showing movement of Trump’s boxes at The Mar-a-Lago Club
- Alleges Nauta’s and Trump’s efforts on August 26, 2022, to confirm and maintain De Oliveira’s loyalty
The indictment states that Trump showed a classified document during a July 2021 meeting at his Bedminster, New Jersey, resort to the writer and publisher of the memoir of his former chief of staff Mark Meadows. Details about that document and the meeting were included in the original indictment, but none of the charges had related to it until now. Trump returned that document to the government on Jan. 17, 2022 — nearly a year after he left office, according to the indictment.
Trump was indicted last month on 38 counts related to the possession and refusal to return classified documents. The charges include counts of retaining classified information, obstructing justice and making false statements, among other crimes. He has pleaded not guilty to those charges.