REUTERS/Marco Bello/File Photo
The Trump indictment watch yesterday was not entirely in vain as Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team served up not the expected indictment of former President Trump on charges arising from his efforts to overturn the 2020 election but a superseding indictment in the Mar-a-Lago documents case instead. But for those anxious for Trump to be held accountable, the superseding indictment may prove to be a mixed blessing.
A superseding indictment is simply a replacement version of the original indictment that usually contains additional charges and or additional defendants. In Trump’s case the superseding indictment did both.
An additional defendant, Carlos De Oliveira, the property manager at Trump’s Mar-A-Lago personal residence, was added for his role in seeking to help Trump allegedly try to delete the computer server that contained surveillance footage. According to the indictment, Oliveira had a 24 minute telephone call with Trump after the government asked for surveillance footage that would have monitored the storage room where many of the classified documents had been kept.