The investigation by special counsel Jack Smith into former president Donald Trump’s handling of secret documents after leaving office has led to further accusations and new charges against him and two other people.
New charges, more defendants
The accusations in the new charges were included in a supplemental indictment that a grand jury in the Southern District of Florida delivered, which adds one defendant and four new allegations to the earlier indictment that was brought against Trump and his associate Walt Nauta.
The handling of surveillance footage, as well as charges relating to Trump’s improper possession of a document that he was previously overheard discussing on an audio tape, are all included in the new accusations.
The obstruction conspiracy allegations in the initial indictment have been amended to include Carlos De Oliveira, a current Trump Organization employee who sources tell ABC News is the head of maintenance at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home.
In the superseding indictment, Trump, De Oliveira, and Nauta are accused of attempting to remove surveillance video from Mar-a-Lago in the summer of 2022, leading to two new obstruction counts against them.
New defendants, more lies
Additionally, it accuses De Oliveira of lying to the FBI during a voluntary interview on January 13, 2023.
De Oliveira has been summoned to appear on July 31, 2023, at the federal courthouse in Miami.
The new indictment also accuses Trump of owning the secret document that he was previously captured discussing on an audio recording recorded during a meeting at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club on July 21, 2021.
The conversation is described in Smith’s first accusation of Trump when the former president is overheard purporting to admit he kept a secret military paper after leaving office but was unable to declassify it as he was no longer in that position.
After being charged, Trump denied that the information he had at Bedminster was a secret document in an interview with Fox News.
New argument, same denial
“It wasn’t a document, OK? I had lots of paper — I had copies of newspaper articles, I had copies of magazines,” Trump said during the Fox News interview. “There was no document. That was a massive amount of papers and everything else talking about Iran and other things. And it may have been held up or may not, but that was not a document.”
Nothing has changed. Denials and more denials.
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