#Latest Trump charges put spotlight on ‘consciousness of guilt’

Powerful new evidence in the Mar-a-Lago case accusing former President Trump of personally directing the deletion of security footage at his Florida estate could bolster prosecutors’ case and demonstrate the former president acted to conceal his guilt.

The superseding indictment filed Thursday night details an effort by Trump, his valet Walt Nauta and a new co-defendant, Carlos De Oliveira, to delete security footage showing boxes being moved in and out of a Mar-a-Lago storage room. 

De Oliveira, head of the maintenance team at Trump’s Florida home, spoke with others about how long security footage remained in the system, telling another Mar-a-Lago employee that “‘the boss’ wanted the server deleted.”

The indictment alleges Trump was personally involved in directing the effort to delete the footage, noting a 24-minute call with De Oliveira the day after prosecutors flagged plans to subpoena security camera video. 

It goes on to describe Nauta and De Oliveira moving through bushes on the property and taking stock of where security cameras were located.

“Here is a plan led by him involving and implicating his two co-conspirators … to destroy security footage presumably because Trump was concerned that it showed the movement of these boxes containing the classified documents around Mar-a-Lago. That’s so probative of his state of mind and his bad intent to obstruct justice,” Norm Eisen, counsel for Democrats in Trump’s first impeachment, told The Hill.

“It’s such a gripping narrative for a jury, with the defendants sneaking around the property and taking pictures of where the surveillance cameras are, going through tunnels and climbing through the bushes to meet. And then Trump placing calls at the beginning and the end of that new section of the complaint. So it’s a big upgrade for [special counsel] Jack Smith, and he’ll need it.”

The superseding indictment, filed when prosecutors have additional charges and evidence, adds two counts of obstruction of justice for Trump in connection with attempting to delete the footage.

It also adds another count to the number of Espionage Act charges facing Trump, now totalling 32, that includes military plans concerning Iran that Trump boasted of having while lamenting he never declassified the documents while president.

Its inclusion is in part significant because Trump denied ever having the document, telling both ABC News and Semafor that it was just a handful of unrelated papers.

“I would say it was bravado; if you want to know the truth, it was bravado,” Trump said in June. “I was talking and just holding up papers and talking about them, but I had no documents. I didn’t have any documents.” 

Details about the alleged plot to delete the footage could be especially significant in the case, as experts say it shows a guilty mindset that is often compelling to juries.

Danya Perry, an attorney who helped draft a model prosecution memo for the Mar-a-Lago case, called it “incredibly devastating and inculpatory evidence.”

“Here what you see is what is called in the law ‘consciousness of guilt,’ which is typically very persuasive evidence in front of a jury that the defendant in question knew what he was doing was wrong. It’s contemporaneous actions to conceal or destroy or cover up evidence or misconduct,” she said. 

“That can be very damning for a jury who’s trying to peer into a defendant’s state of mind and determine whether or not they have a guilty conscience.”

In some respects, Smith had already demonstrated some of that conduct with the original obstruction of justice charges. Those included allegations that boxes were moved to keep them from Trump’s lawyer, and that the former president later motioned for his attorney to “pluck” out any records that might look bad.

“It’s common sense,” Perry said. “But most people don’t try and cover up things that they don’t think were wrong.” 

Eisen argued that the latest filing adds clarity that will be compelling to juries who typically like to see evidence defendants knew what they were doing was wrong.

“Consciousness of guilt matters because issues about the defendant’s intent and state of mind are essential for juries to find wrongdoing. Having appeared in court now and before juries for more than 30 years, they don’t want to convict people who they don’t believe did wrong intentionally,” he said.

Trump on Friday dismissed the new allegations, calling it “textbook Third World intimidation by rabid, lawless prosecutors.”

The superseding indictment does not include allegations about an incident that was referenced in media reports, namely that De Oliveira drained a Mar-a-Lago pool, flooding the room that housed the servers that stored the surveillance footage.

CNN first reported the incident, noting that it was unclear whether the flooding was intentional.  

Perry said she was surprised that the incident, if true, went unmentioned in the indictment.

“That was pretty evocative reporting,” she said.

“Prosecutors are not required to put into an indictment every piece of proof that they might use to support the allegations,” she said, adding, “It’s not their job to reveal more of it than is necessary.”

Eisen said that may have been a strategic decision by Smith and his team.

“The reason that the pool draining does not come into the complaint is probably because they were not able to prove that it was intentional. And they didn’t want to weaken their case by giving the defense something to shoot at and introduce evidence that it was an accident,” he said.

“If it had been useful to them, they would have included it. So whatever the explanation, they’ve made a determination that they could prove their case without it.”