Former President Trump announced Friday that his aide Walt Nauta has also been indicted in the federal investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents.
One day after Trump himself was indicted on seven criminal counts, the former President posted on his Truth Social media site, referring to Nauta, “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!”
Nauta was reportedly caught on security camera footage moving boxes in and out of a storage room at Trump’s Florida country club residence, Mar-a-Lago. The former military valet would eventually tell the Justice Department that Trump told him to move those boxes before and after an attorney had warned Trump he could not hold onto any classified documents still in his possession due to a 2022 subpoena.
The seven criminal counts that Trump is facing reportedly include: unauthorized retention of national security documents, conspiracy charges, obstruction, making a false statement to a law enforcement officer about a fact material to the officer’s investigation, mishandling official documents, and contempt of court for willfully disobeying a court order to hand over subpoenaed documents to the federal government.
The charges stem from Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into whether Trump broke the law in his mishandling of classified documents after an FBI raid had discovered hundreds of hundreds of federal documents—many of them classified—at Mar-a-Lago. Smith, a veteran career prosecutor, had received his appointment as special counsel from Attorney General Merrick Garland in November.
According to reports, detailed notes from former Trump attorney Evan Corcoran had offered federal investigators “unusually detailed knowledge” about the scope and details of the FBI’s search for documents, of which both Trump and Nauta had been informed.
An attorney for Nauta on Friday declined to comment to the Wall Street Journal, which was first to report on his indictment.
Trump, who has protested his innocence repeatedly, is due in federal court in Miami at 3pm ET Tuesday.
