July 27 (UPI) — Former President Donald Trump now faces additional charges in special counsel Jack Smith’s classified documents case.
Smith filed a notice with the court regarding a superseding indictment handed up by a grand jury Thursday, court records obtained by UPI show.
In the notice, Smith wrote that Trump would receive an additional count of unlawful retention of national defense information.
The case originally was filed against Trump and his aide, Waltine Nauta, but the new indictment adds a new defendant.
The court documents identify the new defendant as Carlos De Oliveira, a maintenance worker who allegedly helped Nauta move 30 boxes of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago into a storage room on June 2, 2022, under Trump’s direction.
De Oliveira was referenced in the original indictment, which the superseding indictment replaces, in an unnamed manner. He had been referenced as one of the “others” who had loaded boxes of the documents onto a plane that flew Trump and his family north for the summer.
Trump, Nauta and De Oliveira were all also charged with two new obstruction counts, the court documents show.
“These additions are based on allegations that the defendants attempted to delete surveillance footage at the Mar-a-Lago club in the summer of 2022,” Smith wrote in the notice.
Smith said the superseding indictment contains new language indicating that the men had deleted the footage in an attempt to conceal information from the FBI and grand jury.
Also, De Oliveira faces a charge of false statements and representations relating to a voluntary interview with the FBI in January, Smith said.
In total, Trump was hit with three new charges, increasing the number of counts the former president faces in just this case to 41. Of his counts, 32 of them relate to the retention of national defense information.
Beyond the new charges, the superseding indictment includes some additional details including new bits of alleged dialogue between the defendants.
“Make sure Carlos is good,” Nauta allegedly told an unidentified Trump employee in an August 2022 phone call. Later that day, an unnamed employee confirmed in a message in the encrypted Signal messaging app that De Oliveira was “loyal.”
Trump has not yet addressed the latest charges publicly. His spokesman Steven Cheung called them a “continued desperate and flailing attempt” to harass the former president.
Both Trump and Nauta have previously pleaded not guilty to their charges and the trial has been scheduled to take place next May.
