Special counsel Jack Smith charged Carlos De Oliveira, an employee at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, in the Department of Justice’s case against Trump related to classified documents, according to a court document filed Thursday night.
The filing, a superseding indictment, revealed several charges against De Oliveira, including corruptly altering, destroying, mutilating, or concealing a document, record, or other object, as well as making false statements and representations.
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De Oliveira was employed as a valet at Mar-a-Lago before becoming a property manager at the Palm Beach, Florida, club in January 2022, according to the indictment.
The indictment detailed how De Oliveira and aide Walt Nauta were captured on surveillance video moving boxes that may have contained documents with classified markings before DOJ and FBI officials visited the property to collect subpoenaed items.
It alleged that in June 2022, on the same day DOJ emailed Trump’s attorney another subpoena for surveillance video, De Oliveira had a private conversation with an employee in an audio closet, during which he asked how long a server containing the video kept its footage.
The employee said the footage would stay on the server for 45 days, to which De Oliveira responded that “the boss” wanted the server deleted, according to the indictment.
It also alleged that in August, weeks after the FBI discovered additional documents with classified markings at Mar-a-Lago through its execution of a search warrant, Nauta called an unnamed Trump employee and asked if De Oliveira was “good.” The employee replied that De Oliveira was “loyal” and later reiterated the remark in a Signal chat.
Trump also called De Oliveira that same day and offered to provide him with an attorney, the indictment stated.
De Oliveira adamantly denied ever moving or knowing anything about boxes in a voluntary interview with the FBI in January, which led to his charge for making false statements, according to the indictment.
“No,” “never saw anything,” “never saw nothing,” De Oliveira said in responses to questions about the boxes, per an excerpt of the interview.
A grand jury delivered the initial indictment against Trump and Nauta in June.
The original charges against Trump included 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information, one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice, one count of withholding a document or record, and one count of concealing a document in a federal investigation, as well as a few other related charges.
At his arraignment in June, he pleaded not guilty to all charges, as did Nauta at his arraignment in July.
In addition to the charges against De Oliveira, the updated indictment added three new charges against Trump, including an additional count of willful retention of national defense information.
Trump, Nauta, and De Oliveira were also charged for allegedly asking for the surveillance footage to be deleted in an attempt to prevent a federal grand jury from receiving it via subpoena.
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De Oliveira’s arraignment is set for Monday in Miami in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
Trump, the 2024 GOP front-runner, said in a statement following news of the superseding indictment, “Deranged Jack Smith knows that they have no case and is casting about for any way to salvage their illegal witch hunt and to get someone other than Donald Trump to run against Crooked Joe Biden.”
