Former president Donald Trump is now facing three new felony charges from special counsel Jack Smith in connection with his possession of classified documents two new obstruction of justice charges come from accusations that Trump instructed two Mar-A-Lago employees including top aide Walt NADA to destroy security footage showing boxes of classified documents moving around the Mar-A-Lago Resort the third felony charge comes from accusations that Trump shared classified War plans with people who had no security clearance that war plan is said to be a plan of attack against Iran and that indictment falls under the Espionage Act so what comes next and what does this all mean for the federal case against Trump I'm joined Now by Mary McCord executive director of The Institute for constitutional advocacy and protection at Georgetown University Law Center Mary thanks so much for being with us just help us understand what new evidence led to the charges that have been brought by special counsel Jack Smith yeah well there were really two different categories of new evidence that support these charges first is the evidence of an additional obstruction and this is actually efforts to find and destroy the surveillance tapes after the government had subpoenaed those surveillance tapes you'll recall from the first indictment that some of the most powerful evidence that the government had showing obstruction as it was charged originally was from surveillance tapes that showed while NADA and others moving many many boxes of classified information out of the storage room and bringing back far fewer uh boxes of classified information so what we now have learned based on this new indictment is that that was actual there was a direction apparently from Mr Trump through Mr NADA to the new defendant Mr de oliveras to destroy the surveillance video so it would not be available to provide to the government so that's one bucket of new evidence that led not only to new obstruction charges but to the addition of a new defendant Mr Dale oliveiras the other new evidence is that the government has now charged as an in as a separate crime of mishandling National Defense information the document that was apparently shown to two autobiographers who were working on an autobiography of Mark Meadows that Mr Trump showed to them up at Bedminster when he was doing an interview with them now the the story of him showing that document to those two autobiographers at Bedminster had been included in the indictment previously the original indictment but the document itself was never alleged to be um there was no allegation in there that the government had identified that particular document or even had it in its possession and right and as we saw the former president had said these were news clippings this was not a classified document now that document has come out what impact could this evidence could these new charges have on the overall case on a possible sentence for the former president well I mean certainly each one of these carries a pretty significant penalty the mishandling charge is I believe a 10-year offense obstruction is a 20-year offense although I don't think that the most significant factor here is is the um adding to the potential penalty because I think if we get to the point of a jury trial with a verdict of guilty against Mr Trump sentencing will be a whole another complicated issue to be honest with you on where what kind of sentence will be appropriate I think what's significant here is the the um powerful nature of this new evidence as alleged in the indict in the superseding indictment the fact that it does seem that they probably have a cooperating witness in Trump employee number uh number four um and the fact that as you just indicated Mr Trump's statements about there not really being a classified document that he was displaying to others at Bedminster seems now to be belied at least by the additional account of mishandling of that very document we will be watching to see how this all plays out Mary McCord Georgetown University Law Center thank you so much my pleasure