Former President Donald Trump was hit with three new charges in a superseding indictment for his alleged mishandling of classified documents on Thursday.
The three new charges brought against Trump bring his total in the indictment to 40 but also included charges against an additional defendant, Mar-a-Lago worker Carlos De Oliveira. With the new suspending indictment from special counsel Jack Smith's investigation, here are some of the new details we have learned through the allegations.
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New charges won't change timeline for Trump
Smith, in a filing to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, said the superseding indictment should not change the established schedule for the case.
"The superseding indictment should not disturb the Court’s scheduling order, ECF No. 83, or the May 20, 2024, trial date, and the Special Counsel’s Office is taking steps related to discovery and security clearances to ensure that it does not do so," Smith said in the filing.
Despite the special counsel's wishes for the schedule not to be modified, Judge Aileen Cannon, in the filing setting the schedule last week, conceded that the current schedule may not hold up due to the "amount of discovery in this case."
Four new counts reveal text and Signal messages
In the indictment, the evidence cited includes text messages and Signal messages in which indicted Trump aide Walt Nauta and De Oliveira are communicating.
The texts allegedly include coordination between Nauta and De Oliveira to attempt to delete security camera footage at the Mar-a-Lago Club. Nauta traveled back to Florida in June 2022 on an allegedly secret trip, which he told people was a "family emergency" and used a shushing emoji, when, in reality, he was allegedly going back to Mar-a-Lago to delete security footage that was going to be subpoenaed.
Nauta and De Oliveira texted regularly while attempting to delete the footage, including coordinating meetings and, at times, walking "through the bushes" outside the IT office where the security footage was managed.
Jack Smith isn't done talking to Mar-a-Lago employees
Several anonymous Mar-a-Lago employees are discussed in the indictment, with a person identified as "Trump employee 4" having a conversation with De Oliveira, which De Oliveira said he wanted to remain between the two of them. In this conversation, De Oliveira allegedly told this employee that "the boss" wanted the security camera footage deleted.
Other interactions between Trump employee 4, among other employees, and De Oliveira appear to have gotten him indicted, meaning that Smith's investigation appears not to be done talking with employees who work at the Trump resort.
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The new charges come as Trump is widely expected to be indicted by a grand jury in Washington, D.C., on charges related to his alleged attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. Trump is also under a grand jury investigation in Georgia for his actions following the 2020 election.
Trump's campaign called the new charges a "continued desperate and flailing attempt by the Biden Crime Family and their Department of Justice to harass President Trump and those around him" in a statement on Thursday.