On Thursday evening, a new federal indictment against Donald Trump finally arrived—but it was not the indictment anyone had been expecting. Rather than charges related to the election case being heard in Washington, D.C., this was a new superseding indictment from the grand jury in West Palm Beach that had previously issued 38 felony indictments related to illegal retention of classified documents.
The new indictment adds both new charges and a new defendant to the case. It also increases the number of charges directly against Trump to an even 40. But the most important feature of this superseding indictment is that it details efforts in which Trump conspired to cover his tracks by ordering his staff to delete security camera footage of the area where classified documents had been stored.
It doesn’t only show that Trump destroyed evidence. It shows that he was engaged in wrongdoing, and he knew it.
The new defendant in the case is Carlos De Oliveira, who is listed as a “property manager” at Mar-a-Lago. That name may seem unfamiliar, but De Oliveira was a central player in one very interesting story over the last few months.
This CNN story from June covers the “accidental” destruction of security recordings at Mar-a-Lago when an employee “drained the resort’s swimming pool last October and ended up flooding a room where computer servers containing surveillance video logs were kept.” That action was reportedly considered suspect at the time it was reported. Apparently, everyone was right to be suspicious.
The indictment records a series of actions taken by De Oliveira after speaking with both Trump and Walt Nauta. De Oliveira then drags another unnamed Trump employee into a closet so he can discuss the situation.
De Oliveira took Trump Employee 4 to a small room known as an "audio closet" near the White and Gold Ballroom. Once inside the audio closet, De Oliveira and Trump Employee 4 had the following exchange:
a. De Oliveira told Trump Employee 4 that their conversation should remain between the two of them.
b. De Oliveira asked Trump Employee 4 how many days the server retained footage. Trump Employee 4 responded that he believed it was approximately 45 days.
c. De Oliveira told Trump Employee 4 that "the boss" wanted the server deleted. Trump Employee 4 responded that he would not know how to do that, and that he did not believe he would have the rights to do that. Trump Employee 4 told De Oliveira that De Oliveira would have to reach out to another employee who was a supervisor of security for Trump's business organization. De Oliveira then insisted to Trump Employee 4 that "the boss" wanted the server deleted and asked "what are we going to do?"
The answer to “what are we going to do?” seems ultimately to have been to claim that there was an accident while draining the pool.
Campaign Action
It seems safe to say that considering De Olivieira took Trump Employee 4 into a soundproof closet to hold this discussion, Trump Employee 4 is cooperating with the special counsel’s office in their investigation.
Both Nauta and Trump frequently talked with De Oliveira, and this part of the indictment ends with Trump promising to get De Oliveira an attorney to secure his loyalty.
As with so many other parts of this case, there seems to be nothing more that prosecutors might want. Everything is here from motive to means, including a lengthy collection of text messages between De Oliveira and Nauta, as well as multiple meetings with Trump.
All of this earns De Oliveira charges of:
-
Conspiracy to obstruct justice.
-
Altering, mutilating, destroying, or concealing an object.
-
Altering, mutilating, destroying, or concealing a document, record, or other object.
-
False statements or representations.
That’s a potential 65 years’ worth of charges for his role in covering up Trump’s crimes. These charges also get added to Nauta’s list, along with a “scheme to conceal” that could be good for another five years. In all, Nauta now faces eight charges with a potential 130 years of penalties.
Trump also picks up “altering, mutilating, destroying, or concealing an object” along with ”corruptly altering, mutilating, destroying, or concealing an object,” for an additional 40 years.
But that’s not the end of Trump’s additional charges. That’s because the document that was detailed in the previous indictment—the classified document concerning Iran that Trump held up and bragged about while speaking with a writer at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club—is now added to the list of national documents for which Trump faces a charge of willful retention of national defense information.
This is the same document that Trump has tried to claim was simply “a bunch of paper” and “not a real document.” But the recorded conversation had always made it clear that this document was very real, and highly classified. It’s now been added as charge number 32 under the Espionage Act in Trump’s overall 40-count list.
Again and again, so much of the indictment seems to come back to a conversation between Trump and one of his attorneys in which Trump keeps pushing everyone to cover up what he has done.
a. I don't want anybody looking. I don't want anybody looking through my boxes, I really don't, I don't want you looking through my boxes.
b. Well what if we, what happens if we just don't respond at all or don't play ball with them?
c. Wouldn't it be better if we just told them we don't have anything here?
Trump also whines at his attorneys about how someone else took the blame for erasing Hillary Clinton’s emails as he can’t seem to understand why they won’t take the fall for him. He seems offended that attorneys won’t put their careers, and their freedom, directly on the line to lie for him. After all, it seems that Nauta and De Oliveira were willing to take Trump’s orders, even when they knew doing what Trump wanted put them in danger.
Just as the recorded conversation at Bedminster has Trump spelling out that he has classified documents, knows he has classified documents, knows he’s not supposed to have them, and knows he can’t declassify them, the evidence in the new indictment shows Nauta and De Oliveira ticking every box on the “yep, we’re scheming to destroy evidence” checklist. It would be hard to find a better example of criminals anywhere admitting that they committed the crimes, conspired to cover up the crimes, and lied about all of it.
As of now, Trump is facing:
-
Willful retention of national defense information (32 counts).
-
Conspiracy to obstruct justice.
-
Withholding a document or record.
-
Corruptly concealing a document or record.
-
Concealing a document in a federal investigation.
-
Scheme to conceal.
-
False statements and representations.
-
Altering, mutilating, destroying, or concealing an object.
-
Altering, mutilating, destroying, or concealing a document, record, or other object.
That’s a potential 450 years’ worth of charges on the classified documents case alone. It’s safe to say that the list of charges against Trump is going to grow again. Soon.
Overall, the new indictment shows a much larger effort by Trump and his employees to cover up his actions and in particular to “delete security camera footage at the Mar-a-Lago Club to prevent the footage from being provided to a federal grand jury.” However, this isn’t one of those cases where the cover-up was worse than the crime. It’s more a case where the crime was extreme and the cover-up was simply incompetent at every level.
The Justice Department has recommended to Judge Aileen Cannon that this new indictment not affect her recently announced schedule that would have the trial begin in May 2024. That seems like an ambitious request, and Trump’s legal team will certainly seek additional time.
But at least now De Oliveira will get to use that lawyer Trump obtained for him. Though, of course, Trump never made it clear he would pay for that attorney.
