Former US president Donald Trump is accused of pressuring a staffer to delete camera footage at his Mar-a-Lago estate in the classified documents case.
Prosecutors unveiled three extra charges on Thursday, two of obstruction and one of willful retention of national defence information.
Trump is alleged to have asked for the footage to be deleted after FBI and Justice Department investigators visited in June 2022 to collect classified documents he took with him after leaving the White House.
He is said to have arranged with his valet, Walt Nauta, and a Mar-a-Lago property manager, Carlos De Oliveira, to hide the footage from federal investigators after they issued a subpoena for it.
The 77-year-old is also alleged to have illegally held onto a document about Pentagon attack plans and shown it off to visitors in New Jersey.
A Trump spokesperson dismissed the new charges as “nothing more than a continued desperate and flailing attempt" by the Biden administration to influence the 2024 presidential race.
The Florida charges came as a surprise at a time of escalating anticipation of a possible additional indictment in Washington over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Prosecutors claim video captures Nauta moving boxes of documents in and out of a storage room — including a day before an FBI visit to the property.
They say these boxes were moved at Trump’s direction.
Meanwhile, De Oliveira, prosecutors said, told another employee that “the boss" wanted the server deleted and asked, "What are we going to do?"
Both Trump and Nauta have pleaded not guilty to the original 38-count indictment. De Oliveira is due in court in Florida on Monday.
The trial for Trump and Nauta is currently scheduled for May 20, 2024. It was unclear if the addition of a new defendant in De Oliveira could result in a postponement.
Last week, Trump revealed he had received a letter from the Justice Department suggesting he could be charged in relation to his efforts to undo the 2020 election in the run-up to the January 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol.
In addition, Trump still awaits trial for a hush-money case in which he faces 34 felony counts and also faces civil charges in a defamation case against author E Jean Carroll in a long list of legal troubles.
