Former President Donald Trump has dismissed new charges from the special counsel as “election interference” – as he continues to hold a heavy lead in the 2024 Republican primary.
Trump reportedly asked an aide to delete Mar-a-Lago surveillance footage in an attempt to erase evidence in the classified documents investigation, according to a dramatic replacement indictment unveiled Thursday.
The former president responded both in public statements and on his Truth Social account by suggesting it was in response to his top spot in presidential polls.
“It’s election interference at the highest level,” he said Thursday. “They’re harassing my business, they’re harassing my family, and most importantly, they’re harassing me.”
“This is prosecutorial misconduct on a level never seen before,” Trump said. “If I wasn’t ahead of Biden in countless polls and wasn’t the Republican nominee, it wouldn’t happen. It wouldn’t happen.’
Former President Donald Trump responds to new special counsel allegations by alleging conspiracy as he continues to hold a heavy lead in the 2024 Republican primary
“But I’m way at the top as a Republican and way at the top in the general election and this is what you get,” he said Fox news.
Trump put a cry to that theory by posting two more polls on his Truth account, including one that predicted he would dominate in delegates to the RNC.
He currently has a huge lead in the FiveThirtyEight polling average, leading second-place Ron DeSantis by 52.4 percent to 15.5 percent.
“Our country is suffering from DOJ abuse,” Trump added. “Hopefully the Republican Party will do something about it.”
Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team of prosecutors has filed additional charges to the 32 charges against the former president — and another Trump aide has now been charged with conspiracy in the Mar-a-Lago case involving classified documents.
The new counts put the former president in even more legal jeopardy as he already braces for potential charges in another high-profile case as he wages a multi-front legal war.
One of the charges is that the former president allegedly told aides to “wipe” security footage from his Florida club’s server as a way to thwart investigators investigating the removal of classified documents from the White House.
Mar-a-Lago chief of maintenance Carlos De Oliveira has been named as the third defendant alongside former president and his valet Walt Nauta.
The news came on a day when former President Donald Trump’s lawyers met with Special Counsel Jack Smith’s prosecutors
Both developments pose additional legal danger to the former president, who spent part of Thursday claiming that his lawyers had overturned the case against him in yet another case related to his attempts to overturn the election.
Prosecutors are piling more charges on Trump in the new indictment. They are additional charges related to obstruction of justice and deliberate withholding of national defense information. Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team added them to the existing indictment on Thursday night.
Trump was hit with a 37-count indictment in June.
According to a passage in the replacement charge filed Thursday, De Oliveira “told Trump associate 4 that their conversation should stay between the two of them.”
De Oliveira’ asked Trump associate 4 how many days the server retrained footage. Trump associate 4 replied that he thought it was about 45 days.”
It continued: “De Oliveira told Trump associate 4 that ‘the boss’ wanted the server removed.”
That language, if substantiated, appears to place Trump at the center of the alleged conspiracy to cover up information.
The indictment states that De Oliveira stated that he did not know how to delete the story or if he would be entitled to it.
De Oliveira allegedly helped Nauta move boxes of sensitive files around the private club after the Justice Department subpoenaed Trump.
Nauta continues to work for Trump and faces charges of conspiracy to withhold classified information from the government. He pleaded not guilty in federal court in Miami earlier this month.
The specific allegations against DecOliveira were not immediately apparent.
The news, Trump said, came on a day when former President Donald Trump’s lawyers met with special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecutors to discuss the Jan. 6 case.
Developments in the Mar-a-Lago case came on a day when a separate Jan. 6 investigation progressed
Walt Nauta, an aide to former President Donald Trump, has already been charged with conspiracy
Trump has long called all of his investigations part of a “witch hunt” and has repeatedly turned his fire on the Biden family, calling them “corrupt.” He told Fox News Thursday night that the new moves amount to election interference.
Nauta was considered a witness that prosecutors might try to “turn around” to get testimony against Trump, and he met with investigators during their investigation. But instead, the former White House clerk has remained in Trump’s employ, and prosecutors have charged the former clerk.
Now, De Oliveira’s inclusion poses another candidate for pressure, though as in Nauta’s case, prosecutors may have decided they can make their case without him.
The stunning news came on a day when eyes were on the January 6 case, where Trump has received a target letter from prosecutors related to that case, in Washington, D.C.
The indictment again focuses on a meeting Trump had in July 2021 with a writer and publisher identified as working on the book by former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.
It quotes from an interview in which Trump boasted of a “highly confidential” document, which he used to undermine former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Mark Milley.
“He said I wanted to attack a country,” Trump said, waving the document.
The tape may have already undermined a Trump defense, but it included his comment that “you see as president I could have declassified it,” but “now I can’t.”
According to the new indictment, “The document that TRUMP owned and showed on July 21, 2021 is indicted as count 32 in this superseded indictment.”
Other information in the indictment links Trump even more closely to the boxes of material around his club — at a time when the National Archives was trying to recover material.
In December 2021, an employee wrote that “box answer will be ripped out of him today, promise!”, followed by “12 is his number.”
One staffer texted about Trump, “He follows the boxes, more to come today whether he wants to go through more today or tomorrow.” Another says he asked for “new covers for the boxes, for Monday m.” Morning.’
It added, ‘*can we get new box covers before we give them this Monday? Too much has been written on it. I marked too much.’
That all preceded Trump finally delivering 15 boxes to the records in January 2022.
The new indictment details Nauta’s steps to change travel plans after meeting with Trump, the same day DOJ subpoenaed a grand jury for security footage.
Nauta gave “inconsistent statements” to colleagues, saying he had a family emergency, but also used “silent” emojis.
Reuniting with De Oliveria, he visited a guard’s booth where surveillance videos are held, “walking through the tunnel where the storage room was located with a flashlight, observing and pointing out surveillance cameras.”
De Oliveira then told “Trump Employee 4” in a conversation that “should stay between the two” that the boss wanted to take down the server.
Another part of the indictment describes the period after the FBI discovered classified documents at MAL following the execution of a search warrant.
It says that Nauta called employee 5 to say that “someone just wants to make sure Carlos is good,” referring to De Oliveira.
The aide said De Oliveira was “loyal” and would do nothing to damage his relationship with Trump.
He then told a PAC rep in a signal chat the same thing. Trump called Ed Oliveira that same day and told him that “TRUMP DE OLIVEIRIA would provide a lawyer,” it read.
The new indictment names the trio — Trump, De Oliveria and Nauta, saying they “knowingly combined, colluded, confederated and agreed” to “engage in deceptive conduct” to solicit another person “corruptly.” withhold information.
Other counts only cover Trump and Nauta.
A new count, Count 40, accuses the trio of “altering, destroying, mutilating, or concealing an object.” That relates to the trio requesting that an employee “remove security camera footage at the Mar-a-Lago Club to prevent the footage from being provided to a federal grand jury.”
It says De Oliveira made false statements during a January 2023 interview in Palm Beach.
He said he “never saw anything” when boxes were delivered to Mar-a-Lago.
But according to the FBI, he knew because he “personally observed and assisted TRUMP’s boxes when they arrived at The Mar-a-Lago Club in January 2021.”