Donald Trump binds his subordinates by paying the legal costs of his employees, sources tell the news agency AP.
Former President of the United States and likely Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has dragged a whole bunch of people with him into complicated criminal prosecutions.
In the most recent case, the caretaker of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate Carlos De Oliveira answered the charges against him in a courthouse in Miami, Florida, on Monday.
De Oliveira is charged with obstruction of justice because, according to the charges, he sought to delete surveillance camera footage and lied to authorities. According to the prosecutor, the purpose was to cover up Trump’s suspected crimes related to the storage of secret documents.
Trump’s male servant is also accused in the same case Walt Nauta.
– These two are wonderful employees. They have been with me for a long time and are great people. Now they want to destroy their lives, Trump lamented in his radio interview last week.
Trump demands loyalty from his subordinates
Unlike Nauta, who often appears next to Trump, De Oliveira has been a previously unknown person to the general public and even to Mar-a-Lago guests.
De Oliveira has worked at Mar-a-Lago for over 20 years. At the beginning of last year, he was promoted to the caretaker responsible for the property.
According to the sources interviewed by the news agency AP, Trump has a habit of messing with the employees of his estate and, for example, instructs the service staff and maintenance men in the details of their work.
Over time, Trump has promoted several of his employees from low-level positions to important and visible positions, demanding fierce loyalty and commitment from them.
– I used to be in that trance myself. Trump makes people feel important, says Melania Trump former press secretary and now critic of the Trumps Stephanie Grisham for AP.
Trump, who is buried in criminal charges, has spent tens of millions of dollars on the legal costs of his allies and employees.
According to Grisham, Trump commits his subordinates even more to himself by paying their legal fees, because then they have no other options but loyalty to Trump.
Mar-a-Lago has approximately 150 employees. Many of the people who make their living on Trump’s payroll have ended up being part of Trump’s criminal charges by being witnesses in court.
The charge: the janitor planned to tamper with surveillance cameras
According to the most recent criminal charges, Mar-a-Lago janitor Carlos De Oliveira, along with Walt Nauta, participated in covering up the suspected crimes of his boss.
Trump had a long conversation on the phone with De Oliveira after the court demanded to have the mansion’s surveillance camera recordings as evidence. The next day, De Oliveira and Nauta examined the surveillance cameras, according to the charges, and De Oliveira told another employee that the recordings should be deleted.
The charges do not address whether De Oliveira and Nauta succeeded in preventing investigators from accessing surveillance camera recordings through their alleged actions.
Sources: AP, Reuters