{"id":16229,"date":"2023-07-31T03:18:21","date_gmt":"2023-07-31T08:18:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=16229"},"modified":"2023-07-31T03:18:25","modified_gmt":"2023-07-31T08:18:25","slug":"fresh-charges-tie-trump-even-more-closely-to-coverup-effort-that-could-deepen-his-legal-woes-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=16229","title":{"rendered":"Fresh charges tie Trump even more closely to coverup effort. That could deepen his legal woes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 It\u2019s a stunning new allegation<\/u><\/a> in an already serious case: Former President Donald Trump<\/u><\/a> sought to delete Mar-a-Lago surveillance footage to obstruct the Justice Department\u2019s investigation into his handling of classified documents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latest criminal charges unsealed Thursday deepen Trump\u2019s legal jeopardy, alleging a more central role for the former president than previously known in a cover-up that prosecutors say was meant to prevent them from recovering top-secret documents he took with him after he left the White House. Coming as Trump braces for possible additional indictments related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election<\/u><\/a>, the new allegations strengthen special counsel Jack Smith\u2019s already powerful case<\/u><\/a> against Trump while undercutting potential defenses floated by the former president, experts say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBefore these new charges, you could maybe try some sort of defense that \u2018this was all a mistake, it was my staff\u2019 or confusion about what documents he actually had,\u201d said former federal prosecutor Randall Eliason, a George Washington University law professor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Video from the home would ultimately become vital to the government\u2019s case because, prosecutors said, it shows Nauta moving boxes in and out of a storage room \u2014 an act alleged to have been done at Trump\u2019s direction and in an effort to hide records not only only from investigators but Trump\u2019s own lawyers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The day after a draft subpoena was sent to the Trump Organization, the indictment says, Trump called De Oliveira and spoke with him for about 24 minutes. Though the details of that conversation are not included in the indictment, De Oliveira is described by prosecutors as asking a Mar-a-Lago information technology staffer several days later how long the server retained footage for and is quoted as telling the employee that \u201cthe boss\u201d wanted it deleted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lawyers for Nauta, who has pleaded not guilty, and De Oliveira declined to comment on the allegations. De Oliveira is expected to make his first court appearance in Miami on Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To the extent that evidence of Trump\u2019s involvement in trying to delete video is circumstantial rather than direct, it might present a challenge for prosecutors, said David Aaron, a former Justice Department national security prosecutor who has worked on cases involving the mishandling of classified documents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But if they can tie the effort to Trump, he added, \u201cit\u2019s devastating in its own right, because it doesn\u2019t matter at that point what he thought he had the right to do, or whatever other defense he\u2019s going to have about the classified documents. That\u2019s in and of itself very bad.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It could also help prosecutors establish that Trump knew what he was doing was wrong because \u201cyou only delete video of what you\u2019ve done if you think it\u2019s going to get you in trouble,\u201d Aaron said. And Trump\u2019s own accusations against others, like his claims against Hillary Clinton, his opponent in the 2016 presidential race, could boomerang against him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump has claimed that Clinton deleted emails from her private server for the purpose of obstructing a criminal investigation into her own handling of classified information \u2014 something the FBI and Justice Department never alleged \u2014 but now stands himself accused of scheming to delete evidence he feared would be incriminating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe has specifically criticized other public figures for deleting data when he says they thought they were going to be in trouble,\u201d Aaron said. \u201cSo if you needed to prove his consciousness of guilt, it\u2019s not just an obvious thing that you would ask the jury to rely on common sense for \u2014 he\u2019s actually made statements about what it means when someone does this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump and Nauta are set for trial next May, though it\u2019s not clear if that date will hold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smith\u2019s team also added a new count of willful retention of national defense information related to a classified document about a Pentagon plan of attack on a foreign country prosecutors say Trump showed off during a July 2021 meeting at his Bedminster, New Jersey resort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That charge comes after Trump repeatedly claimed he didn\u2019t have any secret documents when he spoke, only magazine and newspaper clippings, even though an audio recording captured him saying \u201cthis is secret information.\u201d The document was returned to the government in January 2022, months before the subpoena for classified records.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not clear why prosecutors moved now to indict another one of Trump\u2019s underlings, though bringing charges against De Oliveira that could carry significant prison time adds serious pressure on him, potentially increasing the odds that he could decide to cut a plea deal and cooperate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut, you know, Trump seems to inspire a lot of loyalty, at least in some people,\u201d Eliason said. \u201cMaybe they are holding out for the idea that he is reelected and he can pardon them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

apnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 It\u2019s a stunning new allegation in an already serious case: Former President Donald Trump sought to delete Mar-a-Lago surveillance footage to obstruct the Justice Department\u2019s investigation into his handling of classified documents. The latest criminal charges unsealed Thursday deepen Trump\u2019s legal jeopardy, alleging a more central role for the former president than previously known in a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":16230,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[9127,10353,1230],"class_list":["post-16229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-cover-up-2","tag-new-allegations","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16229"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16231,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16229\/revisions\/16231"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}