That's a breaking news.
We're interrupting that report.
We'll get back to Mano later.
Paula Reid is standing by.
Paula,
you're getting some new information,
very significant information.
What are you learning?
That's right, Wolf.
According to the court document.
It appears that a third defendant
has been added
to the criminal case
against former President Trump
filed down in Florida.
Now former
President Trump
has previously been charged
with 37 counts
related to obstruction,
unlawful retention of defense secrets
and storing
classified information
down at Mar
a Lago and refusing
to hand it back to the archives.
And he has pleaded
not guilty to those charges,
but he was charged alongside
one of his longtime aides, Walt Nader.
But according to the court docket,
they have added another defended.
His name is Carlos.
He is a worker down at Mar a Lago.
And according to our reporting
he was previously seen
on surveillance footage, moving boxes
that are believed to contain
classified materials
alongside Walt Nahda.
Now, at this point, Wolf,
we don't know
what charges
may have been filed against Carlos.
We're waiting for
that to be populated here
in the live court system.
But we know down in Mar a Lago,
even after they charge
the former president
and whatnot,
that the special counsel
continued its investigation.
We know that they have continued
to gather evidence.
They've even sent out
one additional target
letter to someone who was not Carlos.
So we expected that
there could potentially
be additional charges
and possibly additional defendants
so we're continuing
to watch to see what exactly
Carlos will be charged with.
Very significant development indeed.
Paula, stand by.
Evan, what's your reaction to this?
Well, Wolf, again,
this is something, as
Paula was pointing out.
Carlos de
Oliveira is
one of the one of the people
who worked at Mar a Lago
who absolutely was under scrutiny.
Part of the issue
was this focus on surveillance video.
The question
that prosecutors had four witnesses
during this investigation was
whether there was any attempt
to delete, to tamper with, to obstruct
the efforts to get that.
That surveillance tape we do not know.
And there's no allegation
that's been made so far in any
in any of the court documents
that that the surveillance tape
was actually in the air
and tampered with, that there was deleted
or anything like that.
But that was the suspicion
that the prosecutors had based
on the questions that they were asking
of witnesses.
Carlos, de Oliveira,
again, was a maintenance
head of maintenance at the
at Mar a Lago property,
the former president's
property in Palm Beach.
And he was, again, someone
who was part of the conversation,
according to prosecutors,
of whether there should be some tampering
of the of the surveillance tapes,
or at least
that's what they based on the questions
they were asking of witnesses.
That's what their suspicion was.
Now, we still haven't
seen the actual indictment.
We only see the docket listing
that there is now a case
against Carlos de Oliveira,
and he is listed as a third
as a third person
who is now under indictment
as part of the Mar a Lago case.
We're waiting now
to get more details of what prosecutors
have found.
But, Wolf,
there's been a lot of pressure
for different witnesses
to provide information
as to
what happened
with this surveillance tape.
Again, we're waiting to see
more information from prosecutors
when they actually unsealed
this indictment.
We say the Mar a Lago case.
We're talking about
the classified documents
they discovered over there. Right.
And this is
this would be, again,
one of the
with the suspicion that prosecutors had
was that
there was some kind of obstruction
that happened.
And that is, of course,
as you know, the former president is,
you know, accused
of obstructing this investigation
of what is
certainly a significant Ellie Hoenig,
our legal analyst,
is joining us right now.
Ellie,
talk a little bit
about the legal implications
of this new development.
Well, Wolf,
as we wait to see
what the specific charges are,
we can know this
this individual
would only be added to the indictment
if Jack Smith and his team
believe that they could prove that
he acted
knowingly and intentionally, meaning
he wasn't simply following orders
with no concept
that what he was doing
was against the law.
So presumably,
Jack Smith believes he has proof
beyond a reasonable doubt
that this person acted
intending to break the law,
whether it's obstruction of justice
or some sort of documents related charge.
The other thing to keep in mind,
looking at the bigger
tactical picture here,
the more defendants in this case
and this would be a third defendant
along with Donald Trump and Walton order.
That's now one more person
with an even more powerful
incentive potentially to cooperate
because before this person was charged,
there was really
nothing to threaten him with,
no particular downside.
And now if
and when this charge comes through,
this person is going to
have to make a decision,
do I fight this charge and risk
potential jail time,
or do I try to help my own
bottom line by cooperating?
So this gives Jack Smith and his team
potentially some more leverage.
And Donald Trump
potentially one more thing
to worry about.
Good point.
Andrew McCabe is with us, the former
deputy director of the FBI.
What's your analysis, Andrew?
Well, I think Liz got it
spot on as usual.
But the one additional thing
I would raise is it does
go back to the specter of timing
and delay.
So as you continue to add people
to this indictment, those and the
our theory is
that Carlos Silveira has been added,
he has the opportunity
he has to go through the same process
that everyone else has. Right.
So he needs to be arraigned.
He needs to have an attorney.
Those attorneys will likely have to go
through the same process
of submitting background forms
to get access to classified material,
because we know
that's at the heart of this case.
So those are all opportunities
to add time to the process
that we've already seen stretched out
from an attempted trial date of December.
And now we're looking at May.
So it could play to the disadvantage
of the prosecutors
in terms of adding a person
that now has another opportunity
to slow things down.
You know, Caitlin, Balance is working
her sources as well.
What are you learning, Caitlin?
Well, Wolf, we are looking
now at something that is emerging
after that initial indictment
against Donald Trump.
And while not adding this third defendant
to this case
and if you back up a little bit,
this isn't that much of a surprise
in that the prosecutors
have been taking steps
to continue their investigation.
They had sent out a target letter
to a person.
We don't know if it was Carlos, in fact,
but it does sound like it
may have been Carlos de Oliveira
Now that he has been charged,
additionally in this case,
or at least we're waiting to see
those charges
materialize in the court record.
But there had been a lot of discussion
in about what had happened at Mar
a Lago over the summer
as the Justice Department was trying
to get all of their classified records
back into their possession.
And they were having a hard time doing so
and not all of those things,
but they had asked questions
about with the grand jury.
And then even after Donald Trump's
indictment was made public,
those issues had not all materialized
as part of this case.
So we really are waiting to see exactly
what might be here.
But one area has been
that has always been a question of will
it become part of this case
is what happened
to the people who were working at Mar
a Lago or working around
Trump and whatnot.
What were they doing?
What were they saying to investigators?
And also what was happening
to surveillance tapes, specifically tapes
that had captured
people moving boxes
or at least captured
while not a moving boxes.
There was a lot of interest
from the special counsel's
office in their investigation
related to those surveillance tapes, how
they were handled,
how people were approaching them,
how people wanted to maintain them.
But that really never became
something that we read about
in that first indictment
that came in the Trump case.
And so that is what I'm
waiting to see, at very least.
But we do know
as of right now
that there's just this third
defendant added,
and we are waiting for Moore
to appear in the court record.