Walt Nauta, the only other person charged with former President Donald Trump, served as his personal assistant after working for him in the White House.
A native of Guam, Nauta enlisted in the military at one point and was a military aide working as a White House valet while Trump was president.
White House valets have an unusual closeness to the Commander-in-Chief, meeting them at times of vulnerability, including over meals and on trips abroad.
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Trump and Nauta forged a bond during the Trump administration, and at the end of the term Nauta retired and went to work personally for Trump.
He was one of the few members of Trump’s post-presidential office when Trump first returned to private life at his club, Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida. There, Nauta resumed the kind of personal duties he had helped Trump with while he was president.
Nauta was seen as deeply loyal to Trump by other aides.
But he came to the government’s attention for appearing on security camera footage of the club, which was subpoenaed by prosecutors, moving boxes in and out of a basement storage room after a subpoena to appear before a grand jury.
In interviews with government officials, according to the indictment, he gave false testimony about whether he moved boxes to Trump’s residence earlier in the year. In fact, according to the indictment, Nauta brought several boxes to Trump’s residence from the storage room at a time when National Archives officials were requesting the return of presidential material, but he told investigators that he had not.
In another memorable moment noted in the indictment, on December 7, 2021, Nauta discovered that some of the storage room boxes had fallen and their contents were all over the floor, “including a marked document.” SECRET // REL TO USA, FVEY”, which stated that the information contained in the document could only be released to the Five Eyes intelligence alliance made up of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Great Britain and the United States.
Nauta texted a colleague and wrote, “I opened the door and found this…”
Prosecutors had been weighing Nauta’s indictment since the fall, but had pressured him to cooperate with their investigation. He refused.
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