Washington (AFP) - Deleting security camera footage. Conspiring with Mar-A-Lago employees to destroy evidence.
Prosecutors are accusing Donald Trump of engaging in a cover-up with the new charges related to his alleged mishandling of top secret government documents after leaving the White House.
The former president pleaded not guilty last month to charges of unlawfully retaining national defense information, conspiracy to obstruct justice and making false statements.
Here is a look at the fresh charges filed on Thursday by special counsel Jack Smith against the 77-year-old Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination:
Deleting camera footage
The new charges relate to Trump's alleged efforts to obstruct the FBI investigation and its bid to recover the missing classified documents.
Trump is specifically accused in the superseding indictment of attempting to "delete security camera footage" at his Mar-A-Lago residence in Florida to prevent it from being provided to the FBI and a federal grand jury.
Also charged are Trump's personal aide Waltine "Walt" Nauta, who was charged already in the previous indictment with conspiracy, and a new defendant, Carlos De Oliveira, the property manager at Mar-A-Lago.
Trump, Nauta and De Oliveira allegedly sought to have another Trump employee, who is not identified in the indictment, delete security camera footage at Mar-A-Lago.
De Oliveira, according to the indictment, allegedly told "Trump Employee 4" that "the boss" wanted the server containing security camera footage of a storage room deleted.
Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, said the allegations about Trump wanting the security camera footage erased "fortify the obstruction and lying cases."
"The new charges concomitantly function as a valuable reminder that the documents probe is continuing and may produce fresh evidence, additional charges, and more defendants," Tobias added.
De Oliveira is additionally charged with making false statements to the FBI.
Asked if he ever helped unload or move boxes of documents at Mar-A-Lago, De Oliveira said he had not.
"Never saw nothing," he said.
Plan to attack 'Country A'
In the original indictment, Trump was charged with 31 counts of "retention of National Defense Information" for allegedly stashing classified documents at Mar-A-Lago and refusing to return them to the National Archives.
In the superseding indictment, Smith added a 32nd count -- a "presentation" made by Trump to persons without security clearances "concerning military activity in a foreign country."
The foreign country involved is not identified in the indictment -- it is referred to only as "Country A" -- but it has been widely reported to be Iran.
Trump is alleged to have shared a top secret Pentagon attack plan on Country A with a writer and a publisher who were working on a book.
Two Trump staff members were also present at the meeting which took place on July 21, 2021 at Trump's Bedminster Club in New Jersey and was recorded.
Trump is quoted as telling his guests "this is secret information" that he could have declassified while he was president but he was no longer in a position to do so.
"Now we have a problem," one of the Trump staffers reportedly responded.
Trump's trial in the documents case is scheduled to start on May 20, 2024, at the height of what is expected to be a bitter and divisive presidential election campaign.
