Trump faces new charges in classified documents case

(Patria) - Former US President Donald Trump faced new charges alleging he tried to obstruct an investigation into the mishandling of highly classified documents by seeking the deletion of surveillance footage from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

The federal prosecutor's office unsealed a new indictment against the candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential primaries, AFP reported. The new charges came on the same day Trump said his lawyers met with Justice Department officials ahead of a separate expected indictment over his alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

The former president was charged in the classified documents case last month with endangering national security by holding top-secret nuclear and defense information after leaving the White House.

He kept the files, which included records from the Pentagon, the CIA, and the National Security Agency, unsecured in his home at Mar-a-Lago in Florida and thwarted official efforts to retrieve them, the indictment states.

In the new indictment, the billionaire is accused of acting with his co-defendant in this case, personal aide Waltine "Walt" Nauta, and a new defendant, property manager Carlos de Oliveira, to delete security camera footage at Mar-a-Lago.

The new charges supplement existing counts of "willful retention of national defense information" and charges of conspiracy to obstruct justice, making false statements, and other crimes for which Trump pleaded not guilty last month. The indictment recounts a conversation between de Oliveira and a fourth, unnamed employee in which de Oliveira says the "boss" wants the server deleted.

Trump's team dismissed the new charges as "nothing more than a continued desperate and failed attempt by the Biden crime family and their Department of Justice to harass" him and those around him. In a brief statement, he called the special counsel appointed to the case, Jack Smith, "deranged" and said he "knows they have no case."

Earlier on Thursday, Trump said his team had not been told when any indictment would be brought for the attack on the US Capitol by his supporters on January 6. He spoke after US media reported that lawyers had been informed it could come during the day, and that Trump's lawyers had met with Smith.

Trump said he received a letter from Smith on July 18 stating that he was a target of the January 6 investigation, focused on efforts to prevent the certification of Democrat Joe Biden's election victory in 2020.

The letter reportedly cited three federal criminal statutes: conspiracy to defraud the United States, obstruction of an official proceeding, and deprivation of rights.
Trump has repeatedly attacked the investigation as a political "witch hunt."