Server Sleeps with Fishes

Donald Trump made a lot of noise about Hillary Clinton’s private server in 2016. He even asked Russia to hack into it (they instead hacked into the servers of the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton Campaign). So it’s rich and juicy irony that one of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s charges against Trump is for him trying to delete content on his…wait for it…private server.

The new charges are in the case of illegally possessing classified documents. The new indictment includes extra charges of obstruction and willful retention of national defense information. What Trump did was ask one of his maintenance guys at Mar-a-Lago to delete security footage to prevent it from being provided to a federal grand jury.

Trump is alleged to have asked for this after the FBI visited Mar-a-Lago in June of last year to collect classified documents he took with him from the White House. Prosecutors are accusing Trump of scheming with his valet, Walt Nauto (who was already a co-defendant), and a Mar-a-Lago property manager, Carlos De Oliveira, to conceal the footage from federal investigators after they issued a subpoena for it. That is obstruction of justice.

Prosecutors got the video and it shows Nauta moving boxes of documents in and out of a storage room, including a day before an FBI visit to the property. The indictment claims the boxes were moved at Trump’s direction.

According to the indictment, Nauta met with De Oliveira on June 25, 2022, at Mar-a-Lago, where they went to a security guard booth where surveillance video is displayed on monitors and walked with a flashlight through a tunnel where the storage room was located, observing and pointing out surveillance cameras.

Two days later, De Oliveira walked through a basement tunnel with an unidentified Trump employee, listed in the indictment as “Employee No. 4,” to an audio closet.

According to prosecutors, De Oliveira told the employee, who was the director of IT at Mar-a-Lago, that “THE BOSS” wanted the server deleted like they’re a mafia family, not the E. Street Band. These aren’t Good Fellas. These are Dumb Fellas. When the employee responded that he would not know how to do that and did not believe he would have the right to do that, De Oliveira insisted and pushed that “THE BOSS” wanted the server deleted and asked, “What are we going to do?” What you are going to do, Mr. De Oliveira, is go to prison.

According to the indictment, De Oliveira asked the IT employee how long the server retained security footage. He was told it was approximately 45 days. De Oliveira also said that the conversation “should remain between the two of them.”

During a voluntary interview with the FBI last January, prosecutors say, De Oliveira lied when he said he “never saw nothing” with regard to boxes at Mar-a-Lago. Who did NOT say he “never saw nothing” was Employee No. 4, who is apparently working with prosecutors.

Donald Trump is poison to people who work for him. Ask Michael Cohen. Even Trump’s lawyers get into legal trouble by doing Trump’s bidding. As Rudy Giuliani. If his lawyers have to hire lawyers, then why would a property manager want to get involved with Trump fuckery? Of course Donald Trump is paying for De Oliveira’s attorneys. Or should I say, Trump’s supporters are paying for De Oliveira’s attorneys.

Donald Trump has spent over $40 million of his supporters’ money on legal fees. But even if Trump is using these funds or his own for his employee’s legal fees, he doesn’t have a right to control those attorneys or tell the employee how to defend himself. But in Trump World, as we learned from the Jan. 6 House investigation, Trump will pay attorney fees to keep mouths shut and to control witnesses.

Trump’s next defense will be that they didn’t obstruct justice since they only tried and were too incompetent to succeed. It’s coming.

Music note: I listened to Queens of the Stone Age.

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