Donald Trump accused of deleting CCTV footage

Donald Trump’s indictment charges have been expanded, with the former president facing a string of new accusations.

Donald Trump allegedly asked an aide to delete CCTV footage at his Florida estate after authorities demanded the tape, according to expanded charges against the former president over his handling of classified documents.

His lawyers also squared off on Friday with special counsel Jack Smith’s team as they finalised a separate indictment expected to be filed within days over Mr Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat and stoke the January 6 riot.

But the former president’s team claimed the latest legal dramas to rock his campaign to return to the White House were a “desperate and flailing attempt by the Biden Crime Family and their Department of Justice to harass President Trump and those around him”.

Mr Trump last month pleaded not guilty to the first set of criminal charges laid against a president in history, as he was accused of illegally keeping classified national security documents after leaving the White House in 2021 and obstructing efforts to retrieve them.

On Friday, the indictment was expanded to include charges against Carlos De Oliveira, a maintenance worker at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago home where sensitive documents were piled in a bathroom, a storage room and on a ballroom stage.

Former President Donald Trump has been accused or ordering staff to delete CCTV footage. Picture: AFP

According to the indictment, Mr De Oliveira told another employee that “the boss” wanted the CCTV server to be wiped, after authorities sought to subpoena the footage last year.

When the employee said he “did not believe he would have the rights to do that”, Mr De Oliveira maintained that “the boss” wanted the server deleted and asked: “What are we going to do?”

Prosecutors initially accused Mr Trump’s aide Walt Nauta of moving boxes around Mar-a-Lago in an effort to keep them from investigators. Some of these efforts had been caught on surveillance cameras.

Mr Trump was also hit with a new charge of wilfully retaining a top-secret document about possible Iran attack plans.

Trump was also hit with a new charge of wilfully retaining a top-secret document about possible Iran attack plans. Picture: AFP

He had been recorded showing off the document in a meeting, while acknowledging it was “highly confidential” and he had not declassified it while he was in the White House.

Mr Smith was appointed by the US Department of Justice to investigate the former president’s handling of classified files and his actions in the wake of the 2020 election.

On Friday, his lawyers met with Mr Trump’s team to discuss their investigation of his efforts to overturn his defeat at the hands of Joe Biden, as a grand jury continued to hear evidence.

The former president – who had already revealed he had been told he was a target of that probe – said his lawyers were given “no indication of notice” of the timing of charges.

“My attorneys had a productive meeting … explaining in detail that I did nothing wrong, was advised by many lawyers, and that an indictment of me would only further destroy our country,” he said on his social media platform.

Originally published as Donald Trump accused of deleting CCTV footage