On Thursday a superseding indictment was served on Donald Trump leaving him accused of trying to delete an incriminating Mar-a-Lago security video.
Trump was charged last month with unlawfully retaining national-security information, as well as concealing classified files at his Florida club.
The feds subpoenaed Mar-a-Lago’s surveillance footage on 24 June 2022. Walt Nauta, Trump’s valet, flew to the club.
On Saturday 25 June Nauta and Carlos de Oliveira, a club property manager, ‘went to the security guard booth where surveillance video is displayed on monitors, walked with a flashlight through the tunnel where the Storage Room was located, and observed and pointed out surveillance cameras’.
On Monday morning, De Oliveira found the IT director and told him that ‘the boss’ wanted the server deleted.
If Trump sought to destroy evidence, it undercuts his defence on the document charges. He contends that the Presidential Records Act gives him the right to retain documents from his time in office.
The Wall Street Journal says that Trump appears to have kept the files out of pigheadedness, not because he wanted to do something nefarious.
The question is whether this conduct gives President Joe Biden no choice but to ask a jury to jail his leading political opponent in next year’s election?
Republicans should be angry at Trump, who is again the architect of his own destruction. He led them to defeats, many of them driven by his personal grievances, in 2018, 2020, 2021 and 2022. Add his Covid performance, the January 6 riot, a $5 million civil jury verdict for sexual abuse, and now an alleged cover-up.
Trump still expects the GOP to save him from his own recklessness by nominating him for the White House a third time. He wants Republican voters to take the fall with him.