Carlos De Oliveira on Thursday became the third person charged with federal felonies in relation to alleged efforts by former President Donald Trump to keep classified information after leaving office and impede an investigation. De Oliveira is identified in the indictment as the property manager at Mar-a-Lago and a former valet.
The charges were filed in a superseding indictment that also added three new charges against Trump, on top of the 37 he already faced in the case, and two new counts against his aide Walt Nauta, who was previously charged with six felonies. Both Trump and Nauta have entered not guilty pleas in the case.
What are the allegations against Carlos De Oliveira?
The indictment claims De Oliveira helped move boxes containing classified information for Trump, and requested an employee to delete Mar-a-Lago security camera footage to prevent it from being turned over to a federal grand jury.
Mar-a-Lago, where Trump currently resides, is a private club in Palm Beach, Florida, owned by Trump’s company.
The indictment claims that an attorney for Trump’s company received a grand jury subpoena requiring the production of surveillance records, videos and images, on June 24, 2022. Prosecutors claim that the next day, Nauta and De Oliveira went to the security guard booth where surveillance video is displayed on monitors and “walked with a flashlight through a tunnel” to a storage room, pointing to surveillance cameras.
The indictment says days later, on June 27, De Oliveira took another Trump employee to a small room known as an “audio closet,” and asked the employee how many days the server retained security footage. The employee said he believed it was about 45 days.
The indictment does not identify the employee, who multiple sources tell CBS News is Mar-a-Lago I.T. department employee Yuscil Taveras.
De Oliveira allegedly told Taveras that “‘the boss’ wanted the server deleted,” according to the indictment. Taveras, the indictment says, responded that he would not know how to do that, and that he did not believe that he would have the right to do that.
Federal investigators spoke with De Oliveira at his home on Jan. 13 and asked him about the location and movement of the boxes stored at Mar-a-Lago, prosecutors said in the filing.
De Oliveira told the FBI at the time that he was not part of a group that helped unload and move boxes at the end of Trump’s presidency, according to the indictment.
In response to a question about whether he was aware that boxes were being moved, he replied that he “never saw anything,” according to the indictment.
De Oliveira also allegedly told the FBI during the voluntary interview that he didn’t know where items would’ve been stored when Trump returned to Mar-a-Lago.
Prosecutors claim in the indictment that De Oliveira’s statements “were false, as De Oliveira knew, because De Oliveira had personally observed and helped move Trump’s boxes when they arrived at” Mar-a-Lago in January 2021.
What happened next?
On Aug. 8, 2022, the FBI executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago, seizing more than 100 classified documents. The indictment claims that on Aug. 26, Nauta called an unnamed employee and “said words to the effect of, ‘someone just wants to make sure Carlos is good,'” referring to De Oliveira.
In response, the employee said “De Oliveira was loyal and that De Oliveira would not do anything to affect his relationship with Trump,” according to the indictment.
That same day, Trump called De Oliveira and told him he would get De Oliveira an attorney, according to the indictment.
John Irving, an attorney for De Oliveira declined to comment on the indictment Thursday.
It is unclear if Irving is the attorney referenced in the indictment. Irving previously worked for the United States Environmental Protection Agency during Trump’s term in office.
