The superseding indictment against Trump included a new defendant, Carlos De Oliveira.De Oliveira is the property manager at Mar-a-Lago, and helped move boxes to obscure evidence. De Oliveira is charged with multiple crimes, including making false statements.
Department of Justice
In a superseding indictment filed on Thursday, the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida added a new defendant to former President Donald Trump’s classified documents case — Carlos De Oliveira, the 56-year-old property manager of the Mar-a-Lago Club.
Who is Carlos De Oliveira?
Not much is known about De Oliveira beyond that he serves as the Mar-a-Lago property manager starting in January of 2022; before that, he was employed at the club as a valet.
What did the special counsel Jack Smith’s office charge him with, in the new superseding indictment?
De Oliveira faces multiple charges, according to the indictment: trying to obstruct justice; “corruptly” altering, destroying, mutilating and concealing records and documents; altering, destroying, mutilating and concealing an object; and making false statements and representations.
On the day Trump’s lawyer was supposed to review boxes at Mar-a-Lago so they could have records that a May 11 subpoena requesting classified documents had been complied with, the new court documents allege De Oliveira helped another defendant in the case, Waltine Nauta, move about 30 boxes of documents from Trump’s residence into a storage room.
The boxes were then presented to Trump’s attorney as though they were the entirety of the documents he possessed — in reality, according to the indictment, over 30 boxes remained out of sight in Trump’s residence.
De Oliveira later helped Nauta load some of the boxes on Trump’s plane when he left for the summer, the superseding indictment alleges.
De Oliveira is also accused by the DOJ of meeting with an unnamed employee of Trump and asking to meet privately then requesting that they delete the server containing video evidence that the boxes had been moved.
After the FBI discovered more classified documents in Trump’s personal office and storage room, Trump called De Oliveira and told him he would get De Oliveira an attorney.
Law professor at the University of Richmond Carl Tobias said De Oliveira was likely charged because he “just wasn’t cooperating.”
“They were finally so frustrated that they realized he wasn’t going to talk,” Tobias said. “He probably wasn’t because he would incriminate himself… if you push and push and someone isn’t responsive, then the next logical step is to charge them as well.”
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