Former US President Donald Trump has received further charges in the Mar-a-Lago documents case, court documents reveal.
Mr Trump received an additional charge of wilful retention of defence information, and two new charges of obstruction, the justice department said.
An additional person, Mar-a-Lago staff member Carlos de Oliveira, has also been indicted in the case.
Mr Trump has pleaded not guilty.
Mr Trump’s aide Walt Nauta – who has similarly entered a not guilty plea – also received two additional counts of obstruction.
The new court documents outline alleged efforts between Mr Nauta and Mr de Oliviera, the property manager at Mar-a-Lago, to obstruct the justice department’s investigation.
According to the new court documents, Mr Nauta and Mr de Oliveira conspired to delete footage from security cameras after the Department of Justice issued a subpoena asking for surveillance footage of the basement where it said confidential documents were held.
In the court documents, Mr de Oliveira is claimed to have texted another employee who was the director of information technology that “the boss” wanted the server deleted.
The documents allege that Mr de Oliveira later met with the employee in a small room, told him them their conversation should remain private, then pressured the man into obliging his request after the employee told Mr de Oliveira that he did not have the authority.
“What are we going to do,” Mr de Oliveira allegedly asked his co-worker. A lawyer for Mr de Oliveira has declined to comment.
The updated indictment alleges that Mr Trump knowingly discussed a top-secret document with biographers visiting Mar-a-Lago to interview him.
The indictment says the document Mr Trump revealed to the biographers contained possible plans to attack “Country A”, which CNN and other outlets identified as Iran.
“Look what I found… Isn’t it amazing? I have a big pile of papers, this thing just came up. Look,” Mr Trump allegedly said to one of his guests.
The documents case is led by special prosecutor Jack Smith, who earlier in the day met with Mr Trump’s lawyers over a separate investigation into alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Mr Trump’s attorneys John Lauro and Todd Blanche met officials at the Mr Smith’s office in Washington DC, US media reported.
The former president said earlier this month that he expected to be indicted in that case, but said on Thursday his lawyers received no indication of timing.
Mr Trump dismissed the fresh charges in the documents case in an emailed statement from his 2024 presidential campaign.
“Deranged Jack Smith knows that they have no case and is casting about for any way to salvage their illegal witch hunt,” the statement read.
