MIAMI (AP) — An employee of donald trumpMar-a-Lago heir Carlos De Oliveira is expected to make his first court appearance Monday on charges that he colluded with the former president to hide security images from investigators investigating Trump’s hoarding of classified documents.
De Oliveira, manager of the Mar-a-Lago property, was added last week to indictment with Trump and the former president’s valet, Walt Nauta, in the federal case alleging a plot to illegally maintain top-secret records on Trump’s Florida property and thwart government efforts to recover them.
De Oliveira faces charges including conspiracy to obstruct justice and lying to investigators. He is scheduled to appear before a trial judge in Miami nearly two months later. Trump pleaded not guilty in the case brought by special counsel Jack Smith.
Advances in the case of classified documents come as Trump prepares for possible charges in another federal investigation in his efforts to cling to power after losing the 2020 election. Trump has received a letter from Smith stating that he is a target of that investigation, and Trump’s lawyers met with Smith’s team last week.
A lawyer for De Oliveira declined last week to comment on the allegations. Trump has denied any wrongdoing and said the Mar-a-Lago security tapes were voluntarily given to investigators. Trump posted on his social truth platform last week that he was told the tapes were not “erased in any way, shape or form.”
Prosecutors have not alleged that the security footage was actually removed or withheld from investigators.
So Nauta has pleaded not guilty. US District Judge Aileen Cannon had previously scheduled the trial of Trump and Nauta to start in mayand it is not clear if the addition of De Oliveira to the case may affect the timetable of the case.
The latest indictment, unsealed Thursday, alleges that Trump attempted to have security footage erased after investigators visited him in June 2022 to collect classified documents that Trump took with him after leaving the White House.
Trump already faced dozens of felony charges, including willful withholding of national defense information, stemming from allegations that he mishandled government secrets that, as commander-in-chief, he was tasked with protecting. Experts have said that the new accusations bolster the special counsel’s case and deepen the legal risk of the former president.
The Mar-a-Lago video 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 allegedly done at Trump’s direction and in an effort to hide records not only from investigators but from Trump’s own lawyers.
Days after the Justice Department served 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 withheld the images and told the employee that “the boss” wanted them. removed When the employee said he didn’t think he could do that, De Oliveira insisted that the “boss” wanted it done and asked, “What are we going to do?”
Shortly after the fbi searched Mar-a-Lago and found classified records at the warehouse and Trump’s office, prosecutors say Nauta called a Trump employee and said words like “someone just wants to make sure Carlos is good.” The indictment says the employee responded that de Oliveira was loyal and that he would do nothing to affect his relationship with Trump. That same day, the indictment alleges, Trump called de Oliveira directly to tell him that he would get him a lawyer.
Prosecutors allege that De Oliveira later lied in interviews with investigators, falsely claiming that he had not even seen boxes moved to Mar-a-Lago after Trump left the White House.
Richer reported from Boston.
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