he s alluding to documents. you can hear papers being shuffled, but the question is does he actually have a classified document in front of him that he s showing to these civilians with no security clearance? now we know the answer. those papers he was shuffling, yes, they were classified documents, they re related to war plans, and doj has that document. that is now a new charge in this indictment. and that makes that incident so tn just donald trump exaggerating or bragging or bluffing as he has suggested. this means he actually had that classified document in his possession. he was showing it to others, he was bragging about it, he was disseminating it to use the legalistic word. that s obviously a very serious crime potentially as well. what do you think? you know, the level of detail in here is extraordinary. but one thing just to go back to, and that is the word boss and the power dynamic because you really see it throughout here, and we mention this
himself in some sort of a battle with. it s very effective evidence, not just for the criminal liability that it poses, but also because of the effect it has on the jury. elie honig, give me your analysis. power to obstruction of justice type charges. first of all, to pick up on a point norm was making before, all these defenses about whether documents were classified or declassified or presidential record act they don t matter if you okay instructed justice. they re completely beside the point. they re not a defense to obstruction of justice. second, as andy and laura pointed out, you goat argue as a prosecutor what we call consciousness of guilt. you get to say to the jury why would somebody do this, why would somebody hide documents, delete footage? and finally, there was a question raised what happens if they actually did succeed in deleting some of this footage? in that case as a prosecutor, you can ask the judge for what we call an adverse inference nrkds to the jury, meaning
and he absolutely was not authorized to handle them. we have statutes and regulations and executive orders that set up the system for handling this. we know he s admitted limitations on his power. some of those conversations happened after he left the presidency where he admitted once i had the power, now i do not. so that is not going to avail him when it comes to defending his conduct. it s very important in looking now at mr. de la vera, the third defendant, to reflect that neither he nor mr. nauta had that power of handling these documents either. so there s a third person who is implicated in the mishandling of this. and wolf, it s not just the high-tech security footage issues. it s the old-fashioned moving of boxes, handling of paper. one of the gaps that has been filled in.
president trying to obstruct the justice department s ability to get to these documents and retrieve these documents. it s interesting hold on one second, paula reid s getting information, as well. i understand you re learning more about some additional charges potentially being leveled against the former president? reporter: that s right. i m actually receiving a pdf of these additional charges now. it s our understanding that this is not just adding a defendant and adding charges against him, but also adding charges in what is called a superseding indictment against former president trump. now i m going to take a second to open this attachment so that we know exactly what has been added. this is not surprising. we knew it was always a possibility that they could add additional charges because we know even after they charged the former president that they continued their investigation. so right now i m going to take a second to open this pdf, see what charges have been filed aga
for a while. because there were questions about whether he had a classified document, if he was embellishing, posturing. then there were questions about whether the former president s legal team was able to find it and hand it over. so that s another really notable development in this new indictment. and it makes it clear these documents were not just confidential information or even secret information. they were top-secret information, sci, sensitive compartment information, the highest category of classified information. remember the criteria here. it has to be information that is sensitive to the sense that it would be helpful to those who wish to do us harm, and something that we do not want our allies to know that we have revealed. we keep it close to the vest in some respects. some of the most stunning developments in this new indictment go right to the heart of why carlos de la vera is actually considered a co-conspirator. part of it lays out what the conduct was after trump