Trump and Aide Plead Not Guilty to New Charges in Documents Case

Former President Donald J. Trump and a longtime aide, Walt Nauta, pleaded not guilty on Thursday to additional criminal charges in the case accusing Mr. Trump of illegally holding on to secret national security documents after leaving office and conspiring to obstruct the government’s efforts to retrieve them.

The plea for Mr. Trump, who did not appear at the federal courthouse in Fort Pierce, Fla., was entered by one of his lawyers. The added charges were part of an updated indictment last month that accused him of seeking to delete security footage at his Mar-a-Lago residence and club. Mr. Trump was first charged and arraigned in person in June.

Last week, he indicated that he would plead not guilty to the new charges on a form forgoing his appearance. During a 10-minute hearing Thursday, Todd Blanche, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, told a magistrate judge that he had discussed the expanded charges with his client, who “has authorized me to enter a plea of not guilty.”

Around the time that the hearing began, Mr. Trump was on his golf course in Bedminster, N.J., in a sand trap on the fifth hole.

Along with Mr. Nauta, Carlos De Oliveira, a property manager of Mar-a-Lago, was accused of conspiring to delete the security footage. Both appeared at the hearing, though Mr. De Oliveira’s arraignment was delayed until he finds local representation.

Mr. Nauta stood next to his lawyer, Stanley Woodward Jr., his hands clasped as Mr. Woodward entered a not guilty plea on his behalf.

Mr. De Oliveira’s lawyer, John Irving, said he was still trying to find a lawyer licensed to practice in Florida. Donnie Murrell, a lawyer based in West Palm Beach, accompanied them, telling the judge that he thought they could strike a deal by Friday.

The magistrate judge, Shaniek Mills Maynard, scheduled Mr. De Oliveira’s arraignment for 10 a.m. on Tuesday, rejecting a suggestion that it be postponed until Aug. 25. But Mr. De Oliveira did not need to attend, she said.

The updated indictment also added a count against Mr. Trump under the Espionage Act related to a national security document that he is accused of showing to visitors at his golf club in Bedminster.

Prosecutors say Mr. Trump showed off the document, a battle plan related to attacking Iran, during a meeting at the club, to two people helping his former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows write a book. In an audio recording of that meeting, Mr. Trump can be heard rustling paper, and saying “as president I could have declassified it” but that it was still “secret.”

The updated indictment says that document was found among 15 boxes of files that Mr. Trump returned to the National Archives and Records Administration in January 2022, months after the agency had sought to get them back.

Mr. Trump has claimed he never had the Iran battle plan at that meeting and was referring to something else in the recorded conversation.

The revised indictment also added obstruction allegations against Mr. Trump, Mr. Nauta and Mr. De Oliveira. It accused them of conspiring to delete security camera footage from Mar-a-Lago after the government had sought to obtain it with a subpoena.

Mr. De Oliveira was also charged with one count of making a false statement to investigators.

The trial, which is scheduled for May, will be overseen by Judge Aileen M. Cannon, not Judge Maynard, so the arraignment left several early pretrial disputes unaddressed.

A point of contention is over what limits should be imposed on Mr. Trump and his lawyers in handling and discussing classified evidence, a necessary first step in turning such material over to them to determine what can be used in the trial and how.

Prosecutors have also asked whether Mr. Woodward, who has represented many other people in Mr. Trump’s orbit, has a conflict of interest in representing Mr. Nauta because he has worked for at least three witnesses in the inquiry who could be called to testify.

In an order this week, Judge Cannon also asked both sides to “address the legal propriety” of Mr. Smith’s continued use of a grand jury in the District of Columbia, even though that activity relates to the indictment brought in the Southern District of Florida.

The second arraignment in the documents case came a week after Mr. Trump appeared at a federal courthouse in Washington to plead not guilty to charges of conspiring to subvert American democracy in his efforts to stay in power despite losing the 2020 election. On Thursday, prosecutors proposed starting that trial in January.

He is also facing felony bookkeeping fraud charges in state court in New York, in connection with allegations that he caused his company to falsify business records to cover up a hush money payment during the 2016 campaign. That trial is set for March.

And in Georgia, a district attorney, Fani T. Willis, has suggested that Mr. Trump and several of his allies may soon be indicted over their efforts to subvert Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s narrow victory over Mr. Trump in her state in 2020.

Speaking to reporters in New Jersey, Mr. Trump renewed his assertion that trials in all of his cases should be postponed until after November 2024 since he is running for the White House again.

“The trial should be after the election because this is just election interference,” he said.

Alan Blinder contributed reporting from Bedminster, N.J.