Details emerge about new charges against Trump in classified documents case

Donald Trump is facing new federal charges in the case involving his alleged mishandling of classified documents in an indictment release yesterday the former president is accused of asking a Mar-A-Lago employee to delete security camera footage Jared Hill has the latest details the Department of Justice unsealed a superseding indictment yesterday showing that former president Donald Trump has been hit with three new charges in the Florida Federal documents case this is harassment this is election interference he now faces accusations of conspiring to pressure a staffer to delete camera footage at his Mar-A-Lago estate in an effort to obstruct the investigation this just adds more devastating uh evidence and ammunition in another charge the indictment refers to this audio recording obtained by CBS News which allegedly captures the former president showing an Iran War plan to several people without security clearances it happened two years ago at his New Jersey Golf Club highly country a third defendant Mar-A-Lago worker Carlos De Oliveira was also added to the case the revelations came after Trump posted on Truth social that his attorneys had a productive meeting with the special counsel's office in Washington yesterday and days ago the 2024 GOP candidate revealed he received a letter indicating he's a Target in the probe into efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election all right so for more on this I want to bring in CBS News legal contributor Rebecca royfey so one more charge piled on top just walk us through the severity of this additional charge which one sort of stands out to you as potentially carrying the most significant penalty you know I think the destruction of evidence is clearly the most damning piece of evidence in terms of the potential sentence that could come with it it is obviously an extremely serious crime to destroy evidence in an ongoing investigation it looks like the supporting evidence in that particular count is strong so I think you know that is important it's also important because it buttresses the case in general it makes it um it's essentially what we call consciousness of guilt the cover-up is not only a crime in and of itself it also shows that this was not an accident and that's critical in and of itself I also think the showing of that document the Iran attack plan is important in a different way perhaps less directly significant legally but extremely important in terms of the narrative because as we heard in your clip one of the key talking points for the former president is I am being singled out look at all the other people who have done exactly the same thing Biden Pence they all had documents in places that they weren't supposed to have them why am I the one who's getting indicted well a clear difference here is none of them were showing a classified a highly classified secret document to others so I think that count is extremely important in that way as well and you know you're right when I think about kind of the former president's response to a lot of these allegations you know he's it's kind of ranged between hey there were a lot of things in the boxes you know there were golf shirts in the boxes and papers I didn't know what was in there two well I Declassified it I could declassify it in my mind so really it wasn't classified at all but this particular most recent count suggests an awareness that he that he was you know that there was an ass he was asked for this video and that the allegation is he then told a staffer to erase said video that he was asked for um from the defense point interview do you think that Trump's legal team is going to have to adjust their initial strategy because of this additional charge yes I think it's difficult I mean first of all you know as you say this is an unusual case and you normally as a prosecutor you don't have your defendant go out and trot out you know their various different defenses but in this case because the former president speaks so publicly about it we know what his defenses are going to be and yes they have been shifting just as you say but many of them include the sort of you know I was too busy I didn't even notice these documents that's a new one and that becomes increasingly hard to sustain when the there seems to be such strong evidence that he was directly involved in an effort to destroy evidence it makes it very hard to sustain that claim so he's going to have to sort of back some into some other defenses and they're shrinkingly small ones that would be effective so this makes a third defendant as well Carlos du Oliveira I think it's added to the indictment now um the second uh defendant was is also an aide or a former aide to president Trump their co-defendants I guess you could do three defense at the same time but that must complicate things for Trump in his case it does complicate things and it's a little hard from our perspective to know exactly what's in the special counsel Jack Smith's mind but you know sometimes when charges are added like this part of the incentive is to try to turn one of those defendants into a witness in other words to get that person to cooperate some of the evidence is it seems extremely strong and damning against a Oliveira so it's possible that you know at some point he jumps ship he has you know both of them have remained entirely loyal to the former president but if one of them decides to cooperate that can always happen and then that strengthens the case against the other two or the other one right all right we will be watching Rebecca thank you thank you well other GOP Presidential candidates are sounding off on the Trump indictment that includes Florida Governor Ron DeSantis our Ed O'Keefe asked him if Trump's legal issues disqualify the former president from running for a GOP nomination at the end of the day voters make that decision some people to ask me like well if somebody's indicted should they be able to run the problem is we've seen political indictments I mean I think Brad was political you have these other these people so that would just give any prosecutor the ability to to render someone ineligible so I've not said that but I also think just at the end of the day the election's got to be about the future it's got to be about what people are concerned about the Santa's made those remarks in Iowa yesterday they come after he cut about a third of his campaign staff this month as part of a campaign reset

Channel: CBS News

Views: 66,311

Keywords: donald trump, trump, indictment, classified documents

Id: beXwkL1Eq4g

Length: 6min 59sec (419 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 28 2023