Special prosecutor Jack Smith added three more criminal charges against Trump, bringing the total number of charges to 40, and charged a maintenance worker at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort, Carlos de Oliveira, with conspiracy to obstruct justice, alleging that he helped Trump conceal documents.
Mr. de Oliveira, 56, told another employee working at Mr. Trump's resort that his boss wanted all security video footage of the Florida location deleted after the Justice Department issued a subpoena.
Prosecutors also accused de Oliveira of lying to FBI agents during a voluntary interview. He falsely claimed he had no involvement in moving the containers of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
According to the indictment, de Oliveira told FBI agents, "I didn't see anything."
De Oliveira's lawyer did not respond to requests for comment.
The charges were announced just hours after Trump said his lawyers had met with Justice Department officials investigating efforts to overturn the 2020 election results after Joe Biden won. This signals a new wave of charges may be imminent.
Trump pleaded not guilty in Miami last month to charges of illegally possessing classified government documents after leaving office in 2021 and obstructing justice. Prosecutors accused him of jeopardizing some of America's most sensitive national security secrets.
Mr. Trump is the first former US president to face criminal charges and has been indicted twice this year, once in New York for hush money from an adult film star and once for classified documents.
The frontrunner in the Republican race for the 2024 election.
These charges do not affect Trump's advantage as the frontrunner in the Republican race to defeat President Joe Biden in the 2024 election.
Conversely, his lead over second-place Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has widened even further. A Reuters/Ipsos poll earlier this month showed Trump leading DeSantis 47% to 19% among Republicans, significantly larger than the 44% to 29% lead before the New York impeachment trial in March 2023.
Mr. Trump is scheduled to be tried in March 2024 in New York and May 2024 in Florida, and by then, the Republican presidential nomination may have been decided. Special Counsel Smith's team said they will try to ensure the new charges do not delay the trial.
Prosecutors have brought several charges against another Trump aide, Walt Nauta. Nauta pleaded not guilty earlier this month to charges that he helped the former president hide documents.
According to new indictments, Nauta and de Oliveira moved 64 boxes of documents to Trump's home after the Justice Department issued a subpoena to Trump in 2022 demanding the submission of classified documents. They only returned 30 boxes for review by Evan Corcoran, a lawyer for Trump who requested an examination of the contents to ensure they matched the subpoena's description.
De Oliveira will appear in court in Miami next Monday.
Prosecutors also said they have obtained documents related to the incident in which Mr. Trump mentioned a “plan to attack” another country during an interview at his golf course in New Jersey.
According to the indictment, Trump stated that these documents were highly classified. Prosecutor Smith wrote that no one in the room had the authority to view them.
Nguyen Quang Minh (according to Reuters)
Source
Comment (0)