The property manager of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate made his first court appearance on Monday on charges in the classified documents case against the former president, but he did not enter a plea because he has not found a Florida-based attorney to represent him.
Carlos De Oliveira is accused of scheming with Trump to try to delete security footage sought by investigators probing the former president’s hoarding of classified documents at his Palm Beach, Florida, club.
De Oliveira was added last week to the indictment with Trump and the ex-president’s valet, Walt Nauta, and faces charges including conspiracy to obstruct justice and lying to investigators.
A magistrate judge in Miami’s federal court read De Oliveira the charges against him and ordered him to turn over his passport and sign an agreement to pay $100,000 if he does not appear in court. The judge scheduled his arraignment for 10 August in Fort Pierce.
The developments in the classified documents case come as Trump braces for possible charges in another federal investigation into his efforts to cling to power after he lost the 2020 election. Trump, the early frontrunner in the 2024 Republican presidential primary, has received a letter from special counsel Jack Smith indicating that he is a target of that investigation, and Trump’s lawyers met with Smith’s team last week.
Trump pleaded not guilty in June and has denied any wrongdoing. He posted on his Truth Social platform last week that the Mar-a-Lago security tapes were voluntarily handed over to investigators and that he was told the recordings were not “deleted in any way, shape or form”.
Prosecutors have not alleged that security footage was actually deleted or kept from investigators.
Nauta has also pleaded not guilty. Federal judge Aileen Cannon had previously scheduled the trial of Trump and Nauta to begin in May, and it is unclear whether the addition of De Oliveira to the case may affect its timeline.
The latest indictment, unsealed on Thursday, alleges that Trump tried to have security footage deleted after investigators visited in June 2022 to collect classified documents Trump took with him after he left the White House.
Trump was already facing dozens of felony counts – including willful retention of national defense information – stemming from allegations that he mishandled government secrets with which he was trusted as commander-in-chief. Experts have said the new allegations bolster the special counsel’s case and deepen the ex-president’s legal jeopardy.
Video from Mar-a-Lago would ultimately become vital to the government’s case because, prosecutors said, it shows Nauta moving boxes in and out of a storage room – an act alleged to have been done at Trump’s direction and in an effort to hide records not only from investigators but also from Trump’s own lawyers.
Days after the US justice department sent a subpoena for video footage at Mar-a-Lago to the Trump Organization in June 2022, prosecutors say, De Oliveira asked an information technology staffer how long the server retained footage and told the employee “the boss” wanted it deleted. When the employee said he did not believe he could do that, De Oliveira insisted the “boss” wanted it done, asking, “What are we going to do?”
Shortly after the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago and found classified records in the storage room and Trump’s office, prosecutors say, Nauta called a Trump employee and said words to the effect of “someone just wants to make sure Carlos is good”.
The indictment says the employee responded that De Oliveira was loyal and would not do anything to affect his relationship with Trump. That day, the indictment alleges, Trump called De Oliveira directly to say that he would get De Oliveira an attorney.
Prosecutors allege that De Oliveira later lied in interviews with investigators, falsely claiming that he had not even seen boxes moved into Mar-a-Lago after Trump left the White House.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
