Former US President Donald Trump on Friday pleaded not guilty and waived his personal appearance for an arraignment on a superseding indictment in his classified documents criminal case in Florida, CNBC reported.
Trump entered his plea and waiver in a filing in federal court, where the new indictment issued July 27 added charges related to an alleged effort to destroy surveillance video of efforts to hide hundreds of classified government records he kept at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach.
Trump was charged in the original indictment in the case with retaining those records after leaving the White House, and conspiring to prevent their return to US officials. Those counts remain in effect.
Trump and his valet, Walt Nauta, a co-defendant in the case, were due to be arraigned on the new charges on Thursday in US District Court in Fort Pierce, noted CNBC.
Nauta so far has not submitted a court filing entering a plea, or waiving his right to appear in person on the superseding indictment, which accuses him and a third defendant, Mar-a-Lago maintenance worker Carlos de Oliveira, of conspiracy in the effort to delete the surveillance footage.
Trump on Thursday pleaded not guilty at his arraignment in Washington, D.C., federal court in a separate case where he is charged with four felonies related to his effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
The four counts with which Trump has been charged are: A conspiracy to defraud the United States "by using dishonesty, fraud and deceit to obstruct the nation’s process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election"; a conspiracy to impede the Jan. 6 congressional proceeding at which the collected results of the presidential election are counted and certified; a conspiracy against the right to vote and to have that vote counted; obstruction of, and attempt to obstruct and impede, the certification of the electoral vote.
Trump spoke briefly to reporters at Reagan National Airport after leaving the D.C. District Court.
"This is a very sad day for America," he said before boarding his plane. "This is a persecution of a political opponent."
Before the indictment in the classified documents probe, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg charged the former president on 34 counts of falsifying business records in March.
(Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)