A Trump aide allegedly seen on CCTV moving boxes of documents around Mar-a-Lago after a subpoena had been issued for their return has been indicted alongside his boss, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
Walt Nauta, a U.S. Navy veteran who fetched Donald Trump’s Diet Cokes in the White House before moving to Mar-a-Lago to serve as a personal aide, is the second person to face criminal charges in the case. The charges he faces are unclear.
His boss was hit with a seven-count indictment on Thursday night, accusing him of, among other charges, willful retention of documents in violation of the Espionage Act.
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Trump himself confirmed Nauta’s indictment in a Truth Social post in which he fumed that the “thugs” at the Department of Justice would dare to go after a “wonderful man” and a veteran who had “transitioned into a private life as a personal aide.”
Nauta, however, was described by the Journal as a “key figure” who has “long been a focus” in the FBI’s investigation into Trump’s alleged hoarding of classified documents. Nauta and a maintenance worker were allegedly seen on surveillance footage moving boxes of documents from a storage room before the FBI raided Trump’s Florida resort.
During the raid, which happened after a Trump lawyer had attested that they had complied with a May subpoena to hand over any classified materials, agents allegedly found more than 100 documents with classified markings.
Nauta initially told investigators that he hadn’t moved any boxes but he changed his story when confronted with the CCTV, CNN reported. He then allegedly said he moved the boxes at Trump’s behest, and eventually he stopped talking to the feds altogether.
That confession is likely to be used by prosecutors as evidence that Trump knowingly obstructed the federal probe.
Nauta has previously been described as Trump’s “most loyal aide” and the “aide who stayed” after almost every other aide was either fired or eventually left out of burnout, disgust, exasperation, or all three.
He worked his way up from being a cook in the White House mess to a military valet whose job was to “linger” outside the Oval Office and fetch Trump whatever he needed, The Washington Post reported in a March profile. That included running to a fridge stocked with Diet Cokes every time Trump pressed the infamous red button on the Resolute desk. It also included ferrying around the cardboard boxes in which Trump liked to keep papers and mementos, a job Nauta carried over into his Mar-a-Lago gig—and one that has now landed him in legal hot water.
His lawyer did not respond to requests for comment from CNN and the Journal.
