Photo:Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images
Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images
Donald Trump’s White House valet and personal assistant, Waltine Nauta, has been charged alongside the former president as a result of special counsel Jack Smith’s classified documents probe, according to the newly unsealed federal indictment.
Nauta, a U.S. Navy veteran and longtime aide to the former president, was reportedly caught on security footage moving boxes at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property, just one day before the FBI executed a search warrant there last August.
Nauta’s charges, totaling six counts, include concealing a document in a federal investigation, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and making false statements and representations.
Before the indictment was unsealed, Trump confirmed that Nauta had been indicted in a post published to Truth Social Friday.
“I have just learned that the ‘Thugs’ from the Department of Injustice will be Indicting a wonderful man, Walt Nauta, a member of the U.S. Navy, who served proudly with me in the White House, retired as Senior Chief, and then transitioned into private life as a personal aide,” Trump wrote. “He has done a fantastic job! They are trying to destroy his life, like the lives of so many others, hoping that he will say bad things about ‘Trump.’ He is strong, brave, and a Great Patriot. The FBI and DOJ are CORRUPT!”
CNN previously reported that an employee of the former president’s had told agents that they wereinstructed to move boxesfrom a basement storage room to a residence at the property — at the direction of Trump himself.
The federal indictment contains several, including willfully retaining national defense secrets in violation of the Espionage Act, making false statements and conspiring to obstruct justice, according toThe New York Times.
Trump is set to be arraigned in federal court in Miami on Tuesday, according toABC News.
TheFBI conducted a searchat the former president’s Mar-a-Lago home on Aug. 8 as part of a criminal investigation that began after the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) revealed in February that officials had removed from the property15 boxes of documentsthat should have been handed over at the end of the Trump presidency.
Around that time, NARA asked the Department of Justice to investigate whether Trump violated the Presidential Records Act,The Washington Postreported, and later informed DOJ officials that some of the retrieved documents contained classified material.
Investigators visited Mar-a-Lago in early June of 2022 and removed additional material marked classified,The New York Timesreported. Around that time, a Trump attorney signed a written statement to confirm that all material marked as classified had been returned, according to theTimes.
But during the Aug. 8 search, FBI agents found and removed 11 sets of classified documents, an unsealed receipt from the search showed. Some of the documents were marked top secret and were only meant to be viewed at secure government facilities.
source: people.com
