Former President Donald Trump was hit with new criminal charges in the federal probe into his alleged mishandling of classified documents on Thursday.
Summary
Former President Donald Trump was hit with new criminal charges in the federal probe into his alleged mishandling of classified documents on Thursday. This brings the total charges he faces in this investigation alone up to 40 criminal counts.
- Special Counsel Jack Smith accused Trump in a new superseding indictment of pressuring an employee of his Florida club to delete security footage after receiving a subpoena from prosecutors.
- The former president was indicted on three additional charges.
- Two charges are for obstruction for attempting to “alter, destroy, mutilate, or conceal evidence” and inducing an employee, Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos de Oliveira, to do so as well.
- De Oliveira was also charged with attempting to “alter, destroy, mutilate or conceal” evidence and lying to investigators, making him the third defendant in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents investigation along with Trump and aide Walt Nauta.
- The third count, “willfully retaining national defense information” relates to a July 2021 incident where Trump allegedly showed a secret plan about military operations in a foreign country to the writer and publisher of his former chief of staff Mark Meadows’ memoir.
- The Washington Post broke down what it called “the incredibly damaging timeline of the alleged Mar-a-Lago coverup.” According to the indictment, Trump was working within hours of receiving the subpoena on ways to defy the court order, and within 5.5 hours of being informed of the subpoena already had support staff – Nauta and De Oliveira – lined up to delete the footage from the server.
- NBC News reported on De Oliveira’s alleged efforts to pressure another employee into deleting the surveillance video on Trump’s orders. De Oliveira urged Yuscil Taveras to delete the server on orders from “the boss,” but Taveras declined as he did not believe he had the right to take that step and would need to speak to his supervisor. De Oliveira was allegedly unconcerned by this and once again told Taveras that “the boss” wanted it taken care of.
- Smith “is effectively alleging that an ex-president deliberately obstructed and defrauded the government he once led and the rule of law he was sworn to uphold,” CNN noted. That ex-president is running to once again be the guardian of the nation’s secrets and guarantor of its constitutional system, raising profound questions about his suitability to return to the Oval Office.”
- Breitbart published an exclusive video reaction from Trump to the additional charges. “I just heard it as I’m sitting down. This is harassment. This is election interference,” Trump told Breitbart. “All you hear about is Trump. No, this is a two-tier system of injustice. That’s what we have. We have a sick country. Our country is very sick right now. We have a failing nation and it’s a very sad thing to watch.”
- Trump linked the additional charges to his status as the frontrunner for the 2024 GOP nomination. “This is prosecutorial misconduct used at a level never seen before,” Trump said to Fox News. “If I weren’t leading Biden by a lot in numerous polls, and wasn’t going to be the Republican nominee, it wouldn’t be happening. It wouldn’t be happening.”
- The New York Post covered efforts by Republican lawmakers to link the new charges against Trump to the Justice Department’s botched plea deal with Hunter Biden. ““The American people understand that Joe Biden and his administration are engulfed in one of the biggest political corruption scandals of all time,” Rep. Elise Stefanik tweeted. “It is no coincidence that the day after a federal judge throws out Hunter Biden’s corrupt, sweetheart plea bargain, Biden’s weaponized [Department of Justice] continues its witch hunt against President Trump.”
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© Dominic Moore, 2023
