Special counsel Jack Smith filed new charges against Donald Trump, including that he sought to delete surveillance video, and indicted a second Trump aide for obstruction of justice. Carlos De Oliveira, an employee of Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, is accused of lying about helping indicted aide Walt Nauta hide subpoenaed boxes of classified information in Trump's home, according to a new indictment, reports USA Today. The indictment said Trump and others wanted to erase security video of rooms in which boxes were kept. It said they tried to get another person to "delete security camera footage at the Mar-a-Lago Club to prevent the footage from being provided to a federal grand jury." De Oliveira told Trump "employee 4" that 'the boss' wanted the server deleted," the indictment said.
In June, a federal grand jury indicted Trump and Nauta on obstruction charges related to Trump's handling of classified material after he left office. The new charges against the twice-indicted Trump include attempts to "alter, destroy, mutilate or conceal evidence," and inducing others to do so. The grand jury added a charge of willfully retaining secret national defense information and showing it to other people. The documents related to military attack plans on Iran, a subject Trump discussed with visitors to his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., in 2021. Trump has denounced the probe as a politically motivated attempt to derail his 2024 presidential campaign. His campaign called the new charges against Trump employees "a continued desperate and flailing attempt" by the Biden administration to "harass President Trump and those around him." U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has scheduled a trial on the documents case for May 20, 2024, after most of the primaries that will determine whether Trump is nominated for the presidency.
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