Special counsel prosecutors asked on Wednesday for a hearing to inform the Mar-a-Lago club’s maintenance chief, charged with helping Donald Trump to obstruct the government’s attempt to retrieve the classified documents at the property, that his lawyer might be hamstrung at trial due to potential conflicts of interest.
The issue, according to prosecutors, is that De Oliveira’s lawyer, John Irving, represents three other witnesses who provided incriminating evidence against Carlos De Oliveira and could be called to testify against him at trial.
In an 11-page court filing, the prosecutors explained the potential conflicts could mean Irving might not be able to defend De Oliveira as forcefully as he would have otherwise because he needed to protect the interests of those other clients, described as “Witness 1”, “Witness 2” and “Trump employee 3”.
“An attorney who cross-examines a client inherently encounters divided loyalties,” prosecutors in the office of the special counsel Jack Smith wrote. “A hearing would permit colloquy with Mr Irving’s clients to inform them of potential risks and inquire into possible waivers.”
De Oliveira was charged in a superseding indictment last month as a co-defendant with Trump and his valet Walt Nauta, after he and Nauta allegedly sought to delete subpoenaed surveillance tapes outside the storage room where the classified documents were kept, and later lied about their efforts to the FBI.
According to the indictment, Trump asked Nauta to travel to Mar-a-Lago to have the tapes destroyed. Nauta enlisted the help of De Oliveira, who first went to a security booth where the camera angles were displayed before walking down to the cameras and pointing them out with flashlights.
The following week, De Oliveira asked the director of IT at Mar-a-Lago how long surveillance footage was stored for and added that “the boss” wanted the server deleted. When the IT director replied he did not know if he had the ability to do so, De Oliveira repeatedly insisted “the boss” wanted it done.
Wednesday’s request to the US district court judge Aileen Cannon is the second for a conflict-of-interest hearing in the classified documents case after prosecutors revealed last month that Nauta’s lawyer Stanley Woodward also had three potential conflicts of interest.
De Oliveira told prosecutors in April that the reason he was on tape taking photos of the surveillance cameras in the tunnel outside the storage room was because he was looking for a shutoff valve after a a water pipe rupture and also wanted to document a broken door below one of the cameras.
Witness 1, according to the filing, gave information about the pipe and door that was inconsistent with De Oliveira’s statements. Witness 1 also told prosecutors De Oliveira helped replace a lock on a closet inside Trump’s residence the day after boxes containing classified documents were moved there.
The other two potential trial witnesses represented by Irving also gave prosecutors information that led to charges against De Oliveira, such as Witness 2 identifying his identity on tape, and Trump Employee 3 relaying Trump’s conversation with Nauta that led him to unexpectedly go to Florida to delete the tapes.
De Oliveira is allowed to keep Irving as his lawyer if he decides to waive the conflicts, though the judge is obligated to conduct an inquiry to ensure the waiver is not coerced given Trump is indirectly paying his legal fees through his Save America political action committee.