CNN’s Dana Bash kicked off Friday’s Inside Politics with a dramatic description of the new charges added by Special Counsel Jack Smith against former President Donald Trump in the classified documents indictment. Bash compared the superseding indictment, which adds 60 pages of details, to a storyline ripped from a crime drama like “The Untouchables.”
The indictment outlines a meticulous account of interactions, dates, times, phone calls, encrypted chats, and even a search of tunnels at Mar-a-Lago related to the alleged efforts to conceal classified documents. The document portrays a narrative with precision, detailing arrangements for a secret trip, a fake family emergency, and orders from “The Boss” (presumably referring to Donald Trump) to ensure that surveillance video disappears. In response to the charges, Trump has dismissed them as made up and characterized Smith’s efforts as harassment and election interference.
CNN reporter Sara Murray delved into the specific details of the new charges, focusing on an allegation that Trump’s associates scrambled to destroy surveillance video at Mar-a-Lago after the Trump Organization received a subpoena for the tapes. The account provides minute-by-minute and hour-by-hour interactions between Trump employees, including Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, who is now a defendant in the case.
It also highlights how Trump’s attorney informed him of the subpoena, leading Trump to communicate with Nauta and alter his travel plans to remain in Palm Beach. The indictment further reveals De Oliveira’s conversations with other Trump employees about Trump’s desire to delete the surveillance footage, despite it being stored on the server for 45 days.
Dana Bash’s comment about “The Boss” drew a light-hearted moment, as she playfully mentioned being from New Jersey, where the term “The Boss” holds a different meaning in reference to music icon Bruce Springsteen.
It runs through, at some points, almost minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour, about interactions from some of these Trump employees, Walt Nauta, as well as this other man who’s now a defendant in the case, Carlos De Oliveira, of when the Trump Org gets a subpoena for these surveillance tapes. You know, it shows that Donald Trump’s attorney informs him of the subpoena, then Donald Trump then makes it clear he wants to speak to Walt Nauta. Walt Nauta all of a sudden changes his travel plans to stick around Palm Beach.
And then we get all of the details of De Oliveira talking to other Trump employees about how ‘The Boss’ wants this surveillance footage to be deleted, establishing that it’s kept on the server for 45 days, and essentially trying to figure out what he’s going to do about this conundrum of all of this surveillance footage out there when ‘The Boss’ wants it gone.
