Special Counsel Jack Smith has leveled additional criminal charges against former President Donald Trump.
The charges are related to Trump’s handling of classified U.S. material post his presidency. The new charges include one count of willful retention of national defense information and two counts of obstruction. The obstruction charges are linked to alleged attempts to erase surveillance footage at Mar-a-Lago after a subpoena was issued to Trump for the materials in his possession.
Interestingly, the document that Trump displayed during a recorded interview in July 2021 at his golf club in Bedminster, which he claimed was a result of his “bravado” and not any actual documents, is now in the possession of the prosecutors. The document is charged as Count 32 in the supersedhilling indictment.
The indictment also reveals that when FBI agents were collecting classified documents from Mar-a-Lago on June 3, 2022, they noticed surveillance cameras near the storage room. A few weeks later, the DOJ contacted Trump’s team for the video footage from those cameras.
Trump, along with co-defendant Walt Nauta and newly added co-defendant Carlos De Oliveira, a maintenance worker, were all charged in connection with an alleged attempt to delete surveillance footage at the property.
This is an ongoing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.
