On Thursday, the DOJ filed a superseding indictment against Trump and a new co-conspirator listing multiple new charges including Conspiracy to Obstruct Justice by “attempting to delete security camera footage from The Mar-a-Lago Club to conceal the footage from the FBI and grand jury.”
(I asked readers once what I should call my breakdown and analysis of legal documents and my favorite suggestion was ‘over the cliff notes.’ So here we are: Superseding Indictment Over the Cliff Notes.)
The way to read a superseding indictment is to open the old indictment, which is here, and compare it to the new indictment, which is here, and see what has been added.
So put on your nerd glasses and open the documents and compare. Okay, Paragraph 10 is new:
So, in January 2022, De Oliveira received an impressive promotion from valet to property manager. Presumably, the promotion came with an equally impressive pay raise.
To find out if anything interesting happened in January 2022, when De Oliveira was promoted, I opened my timeline, which is here, and saw that January 2022, was when Trump returned 15 boxes of documents to the National Archives and evidently decided not to return all of the documents in his possession.
The next change is in paragraph 73. Initially, it read:
Okay, so basically, they just added de Oliveira to the sentence about loading the boxes. We can assume this detail will become important later. Notice there are still “others” who are not named. Memo to others: You might be in big trouble. Make sure you have a good defense lawyer who is not paid by Donald Trump. (You’re welcome.)
After paragraph 73, we get a new heading:
An Attempt to Delete Security Footage.
That does not sound good.
The timeline given in the indictment begins on June 3, 2022, which was when FBI agents were at Mar-a-Lago to collect the documents and they observed surveillance cameras.
On June 22, the DOJ emailed a draft grand jury subpoena requiring production from the security camera where the Storage Room was located. On June 24, the DOJ emailed the actual subpoena to Trump’s lawyers.
That same day, June 24, Trump Attorney I (the attorney is not named) spoke with Trump by phone about the security footage.
At 3:44 pm. Nauta received a text message from a coworker telling him that Trump wanted to see him.
Less than 2 hours later, Nauta changed his travel plans and instead of traveling with Trump to Illinois, went to Palm Beach, FL. (It’s not clear to me where Nauta was, but he was obviously not in Palm Beach.)
Nauta provided inconsistent explanations to colleagues for his sudden change in travel plans. He told one person he had a family emergency. He told a secret service agent that he was in Florida working. (So he’s having trouble keeping track of stories).
Here’s a funny detail: The text message in which he said he had a family emergency included “shushing emojis” which I assume looked like this:
🤫
(Evidently, when you are about to destroy evidence sought by the FBI, the way you keep the whole thing secret is to include shushing emojis in your texts.)
About the time Nauta was making travel plans to go to Florida, Nauta and De Oliveira contacted Trump Employee 4, who we learned is an IT Director. First, Nauta and De Oliveira wanted to find out if the IT Director (Employee 4) was around and working or available. (June 24, 2022, was a Friday, so this is happening late Friday afternoon.) Nauta texted him and asked, “Hey bro you around this weekend?”
Nauta then asked De Oliveira if he was still working. De Oliveira said “yes” and that he “just left.” (Sounds like, “I left but I am available.” There is a conscientious worker for you!)
Then they talked on the phone for 2 minutes.
Next De Oliveira told a valet that Nauta was coming but they wanted the visit to be a secret.
(Oh goodness. De Oliveira told the valet that Nauta’s visit was a secret. That should keep the secret safe, right?)
Then De Oliveira told Employee 5 that Nauta wanted De Oliveira to ask Employee 4 how long the video footage was stored. (So they decide to bring in another employee. Nothing like making sure the secret stays safe.)
At 5:46, Nauta and De Oliveira went to the security guard booth where surveillance video monitors were displayed. They walked in, then, carrying a flashlight, they went through the tunnel where the storage room was located. Once there, they observed and pointed out surveillance cameras.
On Monday, De Oliveira walked to the IT office where Employee 4 (the IT Director) was working with another IT person.
De Oliveira wanted to talk to Employee 4 in private, so they stepped away and had a private exchange in an audio closet. There, in the audio closet, De Oliveira tells him this conversation needs to remain private.
Then De Oliveira asked Employee 4 how long the server retained footage. Employee 4 said 45 days. Then (OMG) De Oliveira tells Employee 4 that “the boss” wanted the server deleted. Goodness. (So we learn we are in the middle of a Three Stooges plot to destroy evidence.)
Employee 4 says he doesn’t know how and he doesn’t think he has the rights to do that.
Imagine how creepy this is feeling to the IT director. An employee took him into an audio closet and told him that “the boss” wanted the server deleted. Employee 4 (the IT Director) evidently didn’t want to do it.
Adding: People are pointing out that “rights” might have meant that he didn’t have access. I agree, but I still think he didn’t want to do it and purposefully didn’t try very hard. News that Trump was being accused of keeping classified documents had been widely reported by then.
De Oliveira pushed back. He “insisted” that the boss wanted the server deleted and asked, “What are we going to do?”
We don’t find out what Employee 4 said.
(Me: 😂 There were only two people in the audio closet when it happened, and the DOJ knows about the conversation. Assuming there are no surveilllance cameras in the audio closet, we seem to have a cooperating witness in Employee 4.)
Well dang. After a few unimportant details, the story ends there.
I guess they didn’t actually delete anything. De Oliveira didn’t know how to delete the server. Employee 4 was too smart to try to wipe security surveillance footage.
After that, Trump and De Oliveira talked for 3.5 minutes. (Evidently, the DOJ knows from phone records who talked and for how long, but not what was said.)
The next new stuff is paragraph 91 where Nauta, De Oliveira, Employee 5, and a PAC representative talk like mobsters about being loyal to the boss. You have to read it for yourselves. No summary will do it justice:
Interesting that the Signal chat included a PAC Representative.
Okay, next we come to the part of the indictment where we get new charges.
One document is added to the list under the charge of “willful retention of documents”:
TOP SECRET//NOFORN
Presentation concerning military activity in a foreign country.
Um . . . the “presentation” part seems important. (This is probably the document Trump waved around at the July 2021 meeting at Bedminster, described in paragraph 6.)
Notice, though, that the DOJ still hasn’t charged “dissemination of top secret docs.” That could be because “presentation” simply means waving them around, which, if the people couldn’t actually read them, may not qualify as “disseminating.” However, recall Trump’s media statements after the last indictment when he said the documents he was waving around were not secret government documents: They were newspaper clippings or whatever. The detail that he was actually waving around a secret government document shows he was lying. Also, obviously, “presenting” or waving around top secret documents in front of people without clearance increases the seriousness of the crime.
Next we see that De Oliveira’s name is added to Charge 33, Conspiracy to Obstruct. This is also added to Count 33, Conspiracy to Obstruct:
Count 42 charges De Oliveira with “False statements” (section 1001). The new charge includes these alleged facts: De Oliveira sat for a voluntary interview with FBI agents. The agent asked him if he ever moved any boxes or saw anything being moved and he said, “I never saw nothing.”
So De Oliveira lied to the FBI.
Here are a few things we know from the reporting about De Oliveira: He is 56 years old, which means he was promoted from valet at the age of 55. His lawyer, John Irving, is paid through Trump’s Save America PAC. His law firm, so far, has been paid around $200,000 by the PAC.
Here’s the thing: If De Oliveira hadn’t lied, he wouldn’t be in trouble. But because he lied, he has made himself part of a conspiracy to destroy evidence, which is part of the crime of wilful retention of top secret US documents.
It may be hard for De Oliveira to extract himself from Trump World. We don’t know his financial or life situation before becoming Trump’s valet, but I think we can assume that the position of ‘valet’ was a step up. De Oliveira’s family believes that De Oliveira doesn’t know how the US government works.
Remember Cassidy Hutcinson’s story. Initially, while she had a Trump-paid-for lawyer, she was stonewalling the Congressional January 6 committee. Then she bonded with Liz Cheney, got her own lawyer, and then she was able to be truthful with the committee. The hope, of course, is that now that this indictment is public, someone close to De Oliveira can help him see that he needs a lawyer who is not paid for by a Trump PAC. Trump, obviously, has no trouble watching people go to prison for him.
The Ultimate Irony
Trump has been indicted for the exact same crime he accised Hillary Clinton of committing (but she didn’t actually commit). At an event in October of 2016, he said, “There has never been anything like this. You get a subpoena, and after getting the subpoena you delete 33,000 emails.” He was distorting the truth about what Clinton and her staff did, but describing what he himself tried to do: After receiving a subpoena he ordered his staff to delete the footage subpoenaed by the DOJ, footage that the DOJ believed contained evidence about his mishandling of secret government documents.
More indictments expected
Two other indictments are in the works. It appears from security barricades being set up around the Fulton County Court House that we can expect more indictments from Georgia any time. There are also signs that a Trump indictment for January 6 will be filed any day.
If indictments come mid-week, I’ll do a mid-week Over the Cliff Notes blog post.
JJ, who I must admit, is the yappiest little dog at the dog beach, does an odd thing . . .
He runs as fast as he can up to the bigger dogs, barks ferociously, then, before they have a chance to react, JJ turns around and runs back to us. There is a metaphor in there somewhere.