Donald Trump's valet Walt Nauta scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday: CBSFormer president Trump's co-defendant in the criminal documents case in Florida is finally set to be arraigned Tuesday morning, according to CBS.
Walt Nauta, who served as Trump's valet and allegedly had a key role in moving Trump's boxes of confidential documents to keep them from being discovered by authorities or Trump's own attorneys, couldn't be arraigned at the time Trump was because he hadn't found a lawyer in the area yet. Since that time, legal professionals and onlookers have wondered if Nauta might decide to "flip" on Trump.
Now, the delay is over, according to Scott MacFarlane, the CBS Congressional Correspondent. He posted on Twitter:
"Arraignment is set for 9:45am Tuesday in the federal criminal case of Walt Nauta, Trump's co-defendant In Miami."
Trump was also arraigned in Miami.
https://twitter.com/MacFarlaneNews/status/1672695840413208576Who is Walt Nauta, the aide charged alongside Donald Trump?
An aide to former President Donald Trump has been charged alongside him with alleged mishandling of national security documents.
Walt Nauta, a US Navy veteran, was a White House military valet to Mr Trump and joined him as an assistant at his Florida estate after he left office.
Mr Nauta, 40, did not enter a plea during a hearing in Miami on Tuesday, and will be arraigned at a later date.
He faces six criminal counts punishable by up to 90 years in prison.
He is charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice, withholding records, concealing documents, scheming to conceal facts from investigators and making false or misleading statements.
Mr Nauta will not need to enter a plea until 27 June because of legal technicalities - he did not have a local lawyer with him in court of Tuesday. He was released alongside Mr Trump without having to post bond and was ordered not to talk to other witnesses.
According to the indictment, Mr Trump directed his aide to move boxes that were a focus of the investigation from a storage room at the Mar-a-Lago resort. He was allegedly told to conceal them from Mr Trump's attorney and the FBI.
Prosecutors have said Mr Nauta can be seen on surveillance video removing the boxes from the storage room ahead of an imminent search of the Palm Beach property, and later moving some of them back - one of at least five times he moved boxes in and out of the room.
They further allege that, in a May 2022 interview with the FBI, Mr Nauta lied that he did not know how the boxes had arrived on site, where they were being stored or whether Mr Trump had intentionally kept any.
On his Truth Social platform on Friday, the former president defended Mr Nauta and accused officials at the US Department of Justice of "trying to destroy his life" and "hoping that he will say bad things about 'Trump'".
Born in Agat, in the US territory of Guam, Waltine Torre Nauta enlisted in the US Navy in 2001.
Navy records show he ascended through the ranks to become a Senior Chief Culinary Specialist, in 2021.
By then, he had been serving in the military-staffed cafeteria for the Trump White House.
The president later elevated him to a role as his military aide, a position similar to a personal valet and sometimes referred to as a "body-man".
Mr Nauta retired from the Navy when Mr Trump left the White House. According to the indictment, he became an executive assistant to Mr Trump in August 2021.
Unlike other aides, who sought to remain in Washington DC after Mr Trump lost the 2020 election, Mr Nauta relocated to Florida and continued to serve as an aide to the former president at Mar-a-Lago.
He has been described as a low-key but constant presence in the Trump White House, and a trusted, well-liked aide in Mr Trump's post-presidential orbit.
The New York Times reported that Mr Nauta is viewed as a Trump loyalist and does not appear to be playing a "side game" in exchange for prosecutorial leniency.
When the BBC contacted some of Mr Nauta's relatives in Guam about the charges, they seemed stunned by the news.
Reached by social media on Monday, his cousin, Lani Nauta, said the family had only just regained electricity after the typhoon that struck the island two weeks ago.
She ended the conversation to call other members of her family and inform them of the indictment.
In an interview with the Washington Post before Mr Nauta was charged, relatives in Guam described him as a "good boy" who moved to the United States "to enjoy his life, not to cause problems".
Pauline Torre, his mother, said the fact that her son had been selected to serve the president "says it all".
But his aunt said he did everything "at the direction of the former president".
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/walt-nauta-trump-aide-reportedly-174257039.htmlDonald Trump Arrested: Former president banned from talking to body man Walt Nauta about case
Donald Trump was banned from speaking about the federal classified documents case with a host of potential witnesses, including his co-defendant, Walt Nauta, a White House military valet and Mar-a-Lago “body man” who was also charged in Jack Smith’s special counsel case.
Trump pleaded not guilty in a Miami courtroom on Tuesday. The judge overseeing the historic arraignment reportedly said Trump could not discuss the case with Nauta.
Nauta faces six criminal counts: conspiracy to obstruct justice, withholding of a document or record, corruptly concealing a document or record, concealing a document in a federal investigation, scheme to conceal, and a false statements charge. He did not enter a plea on Tuesday, receiving a two-week extension as he seeks a local attorney in Florida.
Nauta followed Trump to his Florida resort home of Mar-a-Lago after the former president lost the 2020 election to President Joe Biden, and the Trump aide arrived at the Miami federal courthouse on Tuesday in the same SUV as the former president.
The judge had said Tuesday that Trump and Nauta could still talk to each other about topics unrelated to the criminal investigation but that discussions about the case would need to go through their respective attorneys.
"There will be no communication about the case with fact witnesses who are on a list provided by the government," U.S. Magistrate Judge Jonathan Goodman told Trump.
Nauta allegedly moved around boxes at Mar-a-Lago that contained government records Trump had retained after leaving the White House.
Nauta, whose full name is Waltine Torre Nauta, is from Guam and joined the Navy in 2001. Despite urging from the Justice Department, he declined to cooperate with Smith in the investigation into Trump.
Trump pleaded not guilty to 31 counts for the willful retention of national defense information, one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice, one count of withholding a document or record, one count of corruptly concealing a document or record, one count of concealing a document in a federal investigation, one count for a scheme to conceal, and one count related to alleged false statements.
Nauta worked in the Trump White House as a “senior chief culinary specialist.” His records show his duty station was the “Presidential Food Service,” part of the White House Military Office, from November 2012 to May 2021. He retired from the Navy in September 2021.
Reports have claimed that among Nauta’s many White House duties was bringing Trump a Diet Coke after he pushed a red button on the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office.
The Trump body man was reportedly added to the payroll of Trump’s Save America political action committee in August 2021, receiving $176,000 over the next year and a half, and he worked as an executive assistant in the Office of Donald J. Trump. Nauta was then added to the Trump campaign payroll after it launched in November 2022.
“Trump endeavored to obstruct the FBI and grand jury investigations and conceal his continued retention of classified documents by, among other things … directing defendant Waltine Nauta to move boxes of documents to conceal them from Trump’s attorney, the FBI, and the grand jury,” Smith wrote when charging Trump and Nauta.
Smith said Trump "and his White House staff, including Nauta, packed items, including some of Trump’s boxes” in January 2021 and that “Trump was personally involved in this process.” The special counsel said Trump "caused the boxes, containing hundreds of classified documents, to be transported from the White House to The Mar-a-Lago Club.”
The special counsel said, “Nauta and others moved some of Trump’s boxes from the White and Gold Ballroom to the business center at the Mar-a-Lago Club” in March 2021.
Nauta also “found several of Trump’s boxes fallen and their contents spilled out on the floor of the Storage Room” at Mar-a-Lago in December 2021, including a document allegedly marked “SECRET//REL TO USA, FVEY” — meaning the information in the document was “releasable only to the Five Eyes intelligence alliance consisting of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States.”
The special counsel said Nauta “made false and misleading statements” to the FBI in May 2022, including “falsely stating that he was not aware of Trump’s boxes being brought to Trump’s residence for review before Trump provided 15 boxes" to the National Archives. Smith said Nauta was asked whether he knew where Trump’s boxes had been stored before they were in Trump’s residence and whether they had been in a secure or locked location and that Nauta “falsely” responded, “I wish, I wish I could tell you. I don’t know. I don’t — I honestly just don’t know.”
The indictment also said Trump and Nauta "misled Trump Attorney 1 by moving boxes that contained documents with classification markings so that Trump Attorney 1 would not find the documents and produce them to a federal grand jury.”
Nauta’s lawyer, Stanley Woodward, has reportedly filed a letter under seal with Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleging prosecutorial misconduct by the Justice Department's chief of the counterintelligence section, Jay Bratt.
Nauta’s lawyer declined to comment to the Washington Examiner.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/justice/donald-trump-arrested-former-president-banned-talking-walt-nautaHow Walt Nauta, Trump’s 'body man' turned co-conspirator, could hurt Trump's caseLawrence O’Donnell on Donald Trump’s co-conspirator in the classified documents case: “I actually think them having a co-defendant in there who is by all previous legal precedent completely vulnerable to serious criminal sentencing here is actually very helpful.”Watch:
