WASHINGTON: Former US president Donald Trump faced fresh charges Thursday alleging that he attempted to obstruct the investigation into the mishandling of top-secret documents by conspiring to delete surveillance footage at his Mar-a-Lago property in Florida. The new charges came the same day Trump said his lawyers met with Justice Department officials ahead of a separate expected indictment over his alleged efforts to overturn the result of the 2020 election. The fresh charges add to the existing counts of “willful retention of national defense information” and charges of conspiracy to obstruct justice, making false statements and other offenses to which Trump pleaded not guilty last month. Trump had said his team was not told when any indictment over that case, centered on the 2021 attack on the US Capitol by his supporters, would be issued. Trump has repeatedly attacked the investigation as a political “witch hunt.”He claims without evidence that he lost the election due to widespread voting fraud.

Source: Ethiopian News July 28, 2023 07:37 UTC