Donald Trump has been indicted again–but not the way you thought: It had been expected that President Trump might be indicted again on Thursday. And he was–but it was a superseding indictment in the documents case.
Donald Trump Is Now in More Trouble
Reports earlier this week had stated that the grand jury in the case looking into Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election was going to vote as early as Thursday, meaning Trump could be indicted imminently.
Trump was indeed indicted again Thursday, just not the way it was expected.
The former president was hit with a superseding indictment Thursday in the documents case, with the Special Counsel alleging, among other things, that the former president had asked Mar-a-Lago employees to delete security footage that was under subpoena. This follows the original Florida indictment last month.
A maintenance worker, Carlos De Oliveira, was also named as a codefendant in the case, joining Trump and Walt Nauta.
According to CNN, the indictment alleges that Nauta and De Oliveira “attempted to delete security camera footage at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort after the Justice Department issued a subpoena for the footage,” and that “‘the boss’ wanted the server deleted.” De Oliveira was charged with lying to the FBI.
Donald Trump was charged with one more count of willful retention of national defense information and two more of obstruction.
The willful retention charges are connected with a “presentation concerning military activity in a foreign country,” which is believed to be the document involving Iran war plans that Trump “showed” to biographers during a meeting at his Bedminster club in New Jersey. The original indictment had not charged on that particular count.
There had been questions about the whereabouts of that document, but it now appears that Smith has it. An MSNBC op-ed this week looked at that.
“I, for one, would love to know the backstory on how that document finally turned up. But the fact that it was among the Mar-a-Lago documents means that it eventually made its way back from New Jersey to Florida, leaving special counsel Jack Smith able to add it to the charges he’d already filed against Trump in South Florida,” Hayes Brown wrote.
The indictment itself also lists the different things the former president is accused of doing.
“Trump endeavored to obstruct the FBI and grand jury investigations and conceal his continued retention of classified documents by. among other thing,” the indictment says, before listing them:
“Suggesting that his attorney falsely represent to the FBI and grand jury that TRUMP did not have documents called for by the grand jury subpoena: b. directing defendant WALTINE NAUTA to move boxes of documents to conceal them from TRUMP’s attorney, the FBI, and the grand jury: suggesting that his attorney hide or destroy documents called for by the grand jury subpoena; d. providing to the FBI and grand jury just some of the documents called for by the grand jury subpoena, while claiming that he was cooperating fully: e causing a certification to be submitted to the FBI and grand jury falsely representing that all documents called for by the grand jury subpoena had been produced; and f. attempting to delete security camera footage at The Mar-a-Lago Club to conceal information from the FBI and grand jury.”
What is Donald Trump Thinking Now?
Also Thursday, Trump’s attorneys met with Smith’s team in Washington.
Trump is scheduled to stand trial next in May of 2024 in the documents case, and it’s not clear if the new indictment will have any effect on that timetable. That will put the trial right up against the Republican primary race, in which she remains the frontrunner.
“The updated indictment does not merely add new criminal charges and a new defendant; it also shows prosecutors making a concerted effort to undercut some of Trump’s recent public denials of the case they’ve brought against him. And it adds significant new elements to the legal peril he faces and underscores prosecutors’ deep penetration into his cloistered inner circle,” Politico said of the charges.
Expertise and Experience: Stephen Silver is a Senior Editor for 19FortyFive. He is an award-winning journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver.
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