Former President Donald Trump got hit with more charges on Thursday related to his effort to obstruct government efforts to retake top-secret documents he'd taken with him to his Mar-a-Lago resort.
But as the Washington Post's Philip Bump notes, there's a strange detail in the indictment that appears to defy an easy explanation.
The passage in question describes Trump employee Carlos De Oliveira's unusual movements around Mar-a-Lago during the time when prosecutors allege he was trying to destroy video footage at the resort that had been subpoenaed by the government.
“Between 1:31 p.m. and 1:50 p.m., DE OLIVEIRA walked through the bushes on the northern edge of The Mar-a-Lago Club property to meet with NAUTA on the adjacent property, then walked back to the IT office that he had visited that morning; and then walked again through the bushes on the northern edge of The Mar-a-Lago Club property to meet with NAUTA on the adjacent property," the indictment states.
Bump then speculates on explanations for what he calls this "weird" alleged behavior from De Oliveira.
"One [explanation] is that Nauta was engaged in some activity off the Mar-a-Lago grounds and simply couldn’t come closer to De Oliveira," he writes. "Another is that Nauta didn’t want to be recorded as having visited Mar-a-Lago that day, either by Secret Service or other employees. Another is that Nauta and De Oliveira — by now very aware that the federal government was interested in movements at the facility — were eager not to be observed."
Regardless, Bump argues that it should be concerning that the resort where Trump allegedly kept American nuclear secrets can be accessed "by slipping through the bushes."
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