Trump charged with trying to delete Mar-a-Lago surveillance footage in new indictment

The Justice Department is accusing former President Trump of attempting to delete surveillance footage at his Mar-a-Lago property in a new superseding indictment filed in the classified records case Thursday.

The DOJ says Trump acted with a new co-conspirator to try to delete the footage and also charged him with an additional Espionage Act charge. 

The superseding indictment brings the total number of counts facing the former president to 40 and adds a charge based on the military documents Trump boasted of having in a meeting — warning he couldn’t share them since he failed to declassify them.

It accuses Trump of acting with Carlos de Oliveira, the property manager of the hotel, and Trump’s other co-defendant Walt Nauta with trying to delete the footage.

The indictment notes efforts from de Oliveira, 56, to determine how long security footage was stored on the Mar-a-Lago system. It says he later told another Mar-a-Lago employee that “‘the boss’ wanted the server deleted.”

The indictment also described de Oliveira and Nauta organizing their plans secretly, apparently walking among the bushes around the IT office where the security footage was managed.

At another point de Oliveira and Nauta “walked with a flashlight through the tunnel where the storage room was located, and observed and pointed out security cameras.”

The indictment accuses de Oliveira of lying to investigators about his involvement in moving boxes at the property, saying he “never saw anything,” relating to boxes moving in and out of the storage room.

The indictment also adds a 32nd document to the tally for which Trump is facing charges of violating the Espionage Act: a top secret document on a presentation about military activity in a foreign country.

The document in question is alleged to be one Trump referenced in a meeting at his home in Bedminster, N.J., admitting during the exchange he had not declassified the material — a contrast with a claim he’s since made in public — and describing it as “highly confidential.”

While the episode was referenced in the initial indictment of Trump, the document itself was not among the initial charges.

The superseding indictment comes as a Washington grand jury met in another special counsel probe into Trump’s efforts to remain in power after losing the 2020 election.

In a statement after the release of the indictment, the Trump campaign called the filing “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 superseding indictment ties up two loose ends in the case, with reports indicating that the special counsel had taken additional investigative steps related to apparent “gaps” in security footage.

It was also unclear whether authorities had recovered the document Trump bragged about having relating to U.S. military operations in Iran, a document that will now be among the evidence presented in the case.

The Trump campaign lashed out at Special Counsel Jack Smith on Thursday, calling it an effort to “harass” Trump and those in his orbit.

“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 statement said.

De Oliveira has been summoned to appear in court Monday in Miami.

The indictment also accuses de Oliveira of lying to investigators about his involvement in moving boxes at the property, saying he “never saw anything,” relating to boxes moving in and out of the storage room. 

The indictment makes clear that de Oliveira was one of the previously unnamed employees referenced in the original indictment who helped move boxes to avoid having to turn them over in compliance with a grand jury subpoena.

Trump is currently scheduled to go on trial in May of next year, roughly 5 months after the initial December date suggested by DOJ.

Accompanying the new filing was a notice breaking down the changes in new indictment with a line arguing, “The superseding indictment should not disturb the Court’s scheduling order…or the May 20, 2024 trial date.”

This story was updated at 8:00 p.m.

Zach Schonfeld contributed.