Washington: US special counsel Jack Smith, who is probing Donald Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents after leaving the White House, has brought on additional charges against the former President in the case.
In an updated indictment Thursday, prosecutos have alleged that two Trump employees –aide Walt Nauta and maintenance worker at Mar-a-Lago Carlos De Oliveira — attempted to delete security camera footage at the former president’s Palm Beach resort after the Justice Department issued a subpoena for it, reports CNN.
De Oliveira told the director of IT at the resort “that ‘the boss’ wanted the server deleted”, according to the indictment.
Tump, who had already faced 37 criminal charges, was on Thursday charged with one additional count of willful retention of national defence information and two additional obstruction counts.
According to the indictment, the former President was charged with willfully retaining a top-secret document that was a “presentation concerning military activity in a foreign country”, which CNN had identified as Iran.
New charges were also filed against Nauta. De Oliveira, who was added to the case, was charged with lying to the FBI about moving boxes at Trump’s golf club.
Earlier on Thursday, Trump’s lawyers, John Lauro and Todd Blanche, had met the special counsel at his office in Washington D.C. over a separate investigation into alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, reports the BBC.
Earlier this month, Trump said that he expected to be indicted in that case, but on Thursday, he said his lawyers received no indication of timing.
He dismissed the fresh charges in the documents case in an emailed statement from his 2024 presidential campaign.
“Deranged Jack Smith knows that they have no case and is casting about for any way to salvage their illegal witch hunt,” the statement read.