Walt Nauta, the one different particular person indicted together with former President Donald J. Trump, has been serving as his private aide after beforehand working for him within the White Home.
A local of Guam, Mr. Nauta enlisted within the navy in some unspecified time in the future and was a navy aide working as a White Home valet whereas Mr. Trump was president.
The valets within the White Home have uncommon proximity to the commander in chief, encountering them at moments of vulnerability, together with at meals and on international journeys.
Mr. Trump and Mr. Nauta cast a bond throughout the Trump administration, and when the time period ended, Mr. Nauta retired and went to go work for Mr. Trump personally.
He was one of many only a few members of Mr. Trump’s post-presidential workplace when Mr. Trump first returned to non-public life at his membership, Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Seashore, Fla. There, Mr. Nauta resumed the sort of private chores that he had helped Mr. Trump with whereas he was president.
Mr. Nauta has been seen as deeply loyal to Mr. Trump by different aides.
However he attracted the eye of the federal government for his look on safety digital camera footage from the membership, which was subpoenaed by prosecutors, transferring bins out and in of a basement storage room after a grand jury subpoena.
In interviews with authorities officers, in line with the indictment, he gave false testimony about whether or not he had moved bins to Mr. Trump’s residence earlier within the yr. In actuality, in line with the indictment, Mr. Nauta introduced a number of bins to Mr. Trump’s residence from the storage room at a time when Nationwide Archives officers had been searching for the return of presidential materials, however he instructed investigators he didn’t.
In one other memorable second famous within the indictment, on Dec. 7, 2021, Mr. Nauta found that among the bins within the storage room had fallen and their contents had been all around the flooring, “together with a doc marked ‘SECRET//REL TO USA, FVEY,’ which denoted that the data within the doc was releasable solely to the 5 Eyes intelligence alliance consisting of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Britain and america.”
Mr. Nauta texted a colleague and wrote, “I opened the door and located this…”
Prosecutors have been weighing charging Mr. Nauta for the reason that fall, however had been pressuring him to cooperate with their investigation. He declined.
