Trump co-defendants arraigned in Mar-a-Lago documents charges

Former President Trump’s two co-defendants appeared Thursday in a Florida court to be arraigned on additional charges in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case.

Body man Walt Nauta and property manager Carlos De Oliveira are expected to plead not guilty to additional charges stemming from an alleged plot to destroy surveillance footage from Trump’s oceanfront resort home after prosecutors issued a subpoena for the video.

Trump himself waived his appearance and pleaded not guilty to the extra charges in a superseding indictment to the original charges related to improperly stashing classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and refusing to return them to the feds.

Nauta and De Oliveira are charged with helping Trump obstruct the probe by moving the documents, aiming to destroy the footage and lying to the FBI.

Trump has been indicted on criminal charges in three separate cases this year even as he builds a commanding lead in the 2024 Republican presidential primary race.

Prosecutors in Atlanta’s Fulton County reportedly plan to ask a grand jury there to charge Trump in a sprawling election interference conspiracy as soon as next week.

The new charges in the classified documents case accuses all three men of plotting to destroy the footage that prosecutors considered to be crucial evidence of Trump’s obstruction of their probe in the summer of 2022.

The Mar-a-Lago video shows Nauta moving boxes in and out of a storage room in an alleged effort to hide evidence not only from investigators but even from Trump’s own lawyers.

Just days after Trump was hit with a subpoena for the footage, De Oliveira allegedly told a Mar-a-Lago tech worker that “the boss” wanted it scrubbed.

The colleague said he couldn’t help and the footage was eventually handed over to the feds.

Besides the documents case, Trump was indicted last week for seeking to overturn the 2020 election.

He also faces a March 2024 trial in a Manhattan court on charges related to hush money payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels.