(UnitedHeadlines.com) – New testimony from Walt Nauta, former President Donald Trump’s valet, sheds light on the FBI’s investigation into the classified documents found at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in August 2022.
According to unsealed court documents, Nauta testified before a grand jury about boxes of documents he took from a storage room at Mar-a-Lago in January 2022 to return to the National Archives. According to Nauta’s testimony, he randomly decided which boxes to return and would “just pick some off the top,” according to the unsealed transcript. While choosing boxes to return, Nauta said that Trump said, “Okay, that’s it.”
The unsealed documents reveal the names of witnesses’ investigators spoke with, including a second witness who has not been identified publicly, who corroborated Nauta’s testimony, noting Trump told them not to send any more boxes to the National Archives.
According to an unredacted FBI search warrant affidavit, Nauta and others “collected the fifteen boxes from the storage room to the entryway” from Mar-a-Lago to be personally reviewed by Trump before returning the boxes to the National Archives. According to an FBI agent, video footage shows more than 15 boxes that the former president did not review.
The unredacted FBI search warrant affidavit and Nauta’s testimony before the grand jury are included in Trump and Nauta’s challenges filed in court against Special counsel Jack Smith’s case.
Smith charged Trump with criminal mishandling of classified documents and attempted obstruction of justice for failing to return the documents after being subpoenaed by the federal government for their return. Nauta is a co-defendant in the classified documents case, indicted as a co-conspirator to obstructing justice along with co-defendant Carlos De Oliveira. All have pleaded not guilty.
On May 7, Judge Aileen Cannon indefinitely postponed the case, stating numerous issues must be resolved about how to deal with classified information presented during the trial. While Cannon did not set a trial date, she moved some court dates into late July, noting there are still “eight substantive pretrial motions” she must rule on.
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