Rebecca Blackwell/Associated Press
On July 6, 2023, in Miami, former President Donald Trump’s valet Walt Nauta was indicted on charges of aiding and abetting the former president’s concealment of classified documents that the Justice Department is seeking to return.
CNN
—
According to recent reports, Donald Trump’s acolytes randomly selected boxes of documents to be returned to the National Archives before the FBI raids Mar-a-Lago in 2022, and Trump himself is planning to visit the resort. He told investigators that he had instructed him not to return dozens more boxes. Unsealed court filings.
The filings reviewed by CNN show that Walt Nauta, now President Trump’s co-defendant in the classified documents case, tried to give the FBI legitimacy to execute a search warrant on a Florida resort owned by the former president. This shed new light on the important role played by the Japanese government.
Two months before the August 2022 raid, Nauta testified to a grand jury about a box he removed from a storage room at Mar-a-Lago in January 2022.
According to newly unsealed transcripts and an unredacted FBI search warrant affidavit, a grand juror asked Nauta if he could “pick a few from the top,” and Nauta said, He said he answered “yes.”
Nauta said that at one point in the process of selecting the boxes for Trump to review before returning them to the archives, Trump was like, “Okay, that’s it.”
Nauta’s testimony was corroborated by a second witness, whose identity has not been made public. Both said President Trump directed them not to give the National Archives any more boxes.
Recently unsealed filings show that investigators have spoken to dozens of witnesses and obtained information about the inner workings of Mar-a-Lago and the Trump White House. was not included in the original charging documents against Trump and Nauta, but could be used in the trial. In particular, the filing further sheds light on how the FBI knew there were additional boxes in Trump’s club that may have contained classified records. be.
President Trump has been indicted by Special Counsel Jack Smith on charges of criminal mismanagement of national security records and attempted obstruction of justice after the federal government subpoenaed him to return home. Nauta and another co-defendant, Carlos de Oliveira, were charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice. All three have maintained their innocence. A trial date has not yet been set.
Nauta grand jury testimony could be used in trial against Trump
The newly unredacted Mar-a-Lago search warrant affidavit and Mr. Nauta’s grand jury testimony were filed in court as part of several challenges Mr. Trump and Mr. Nauta are making to Mr. Smith’s lawsuit. included in the submitted documents.
Nauta ultimately stopped cooperating with the special counsel because, according to court arguments he gave in the case, he refused to return to the grand jury for further testimony unless certain conditions were met. They now allege that they were prosecuted selectively and in retaliation. The judge is still considering it.
Nauta’s lawyer declined to comment on the matter. Some of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, who are currently defending him in his ongoing criminal trial in Manhattan related to the hush money payments, also had no comment.
03:33 – Source: CNN
Do Mar-a-Lago guests have special access to President Trump?
Mr. Nauta’s grand jury testimony could be a notable part of the eventual trial against Mr. Trump. Even if Mr. Nauta refuses to testify, prosecutors could try to use his grand jury statements about Mr. Trump in their presentation to the jury.
A criminal investigation into mishandling of classified information examined the first 15 boxes recovered from Mar-a-Lago by the archives, and was alarmed when archives staff discovered classified government records inside them. It started later.
Trump’s lawyers responded to a subpoena for all classified documents at the resort and handed over the envelope containing the materials in June 2022. At the time, one of Trump’s lawyers signed a statement claiming that an “intense search” of the box had taken place. Find all such documents.
In an affidavit for the Mar-a-Lago raid several weeks later, investigators noted statements from Nauta and another witness, as well as what Justice Department and FBI officials had witnessed at the resort. He explained how he concluded there was evidence. The boxes containing confidential Trump White House records were far more than the 15 boxes collected by the National Archives.
Witness statements the FBI gave in court at the time showed that boxes of records were haphazardly selected for return to the National Archives, and that President Trump himself directed that dozens more boxes not be returned. It was showing.
Comparing the affidavit, Nauta was referred to as “Witness 5” in the warrant, with recently released grand jury appearances from June 2022 and other details revealed in the crime. You can identify yourself. minutes.
The FBI said in an affidavit that Nauta and others “assembled 15 boxes from a storage room at Mar-a-Lago to the entrance to the FPOTUS private living suite” so that President Trump could personally inspect them. said. (FPOTUS refers to “Former President of the United States.”)
“Even though there were far more than 15 FPOTUS boxes, FPOTUS did not search the remaining FPOTUS boxes prior to NARA’s takeover,” FBI agents wrote to the court justifying the search.
The Justice Department requested surveillance footage from the Trump Organization Mar-a-Lago shortly after Nauta’s grand jury testimony, according to the affidavit. Video footage showed Nauta moving boxes of classified materials around the resort in the days before and after Trump’s lawyers were scheduled to review them.
The FBI told the court that before lawyers inspected the boxes in the room, a video review showed that “Witness 5” removed more than 60 boxes from a storage room at Mar-a-Lago. He said it was found that less than half had returned. .
Nauta seeks to throw away evidence from phone and email accounts
After Mr. Nauta testified before the grand jury, Mr. Trump’s aides replaced his original lawyer with one provided through Trump World.
The new attorney, Stanley Woodward, asked Nauta to return to the grand jury for further testimony after prosecutors denied him the ability to testify under conditions that would protect him from indictment, according to court records. refused the request.
In a separate series of filings made public in the Florida federal court case, Mr. Nauta also told U.S. District Judge Eileen Cannon that evidence prosecutors obtained from a search of his phone and email accounts I am asking you to dispose of it. He claims the FBI mischaracterized a grand jury warrant affidavit to claim he lied in the investigation.
Mr. Nauta also claims that the subpoena is invalid and that he did not know at the time that the removal of the boxes had any connection to the subpoena’s demands.
The Office of the Special Counsel said in a court filing that Nauta’s resistance to the affidavit was “impossible.”
Federal prosecutors last week recommended in writing to a judge that they continue to release updated versions of the Mar-a-Lago search documents as further disclosures are made in the criminal case.
CNN’s Hannah Rabinowitz contributed to this report.
