In the federal investigation into the mishandling of classified documents, an aide to Donald Trump was charged along with the former president in an indictment unsealed Friday.
Waltine Nauta, a former valet in the Trump White House who left to become one of his aides, was charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice, according to an indictment unsealed on Friday.
According to the indictment, Nauta took direction from Trump and moved boxes of classified documents throughout multiple locations at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago resort home in an effort to hide the materials from authorities looking for them.
The six charges against Nauta including conspiracy to obstruct justice and concealing evidence.
On Truth Social, Trump said Nauta had served proudly with him.
“He has done a fantastic job!” Trump said.
Trump’s indictment on Thursday was the culmination of a nearly seven-month Justice Department investigation by special counsel Jack Smith, who was appointed in November to look into the former president’s handling of secret documents that were taken from the White House during Trump’s final days as president.
Trump is facing 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information, according to the indictment.
Nauta formerly served as Trump’s military aide, a role similar to a personal valet and sometimes referred to as a “body man,” according to the New York Times.
After the 2020 election, Nauta relocated to Florida and served as an aide to Trump at Mar-a-Lago.
According to the indictment, Nauta helped Trump and his aides move boxes of the documents at Mar-a-Lago. Nauta also allegedly loaded documents into his car and then took them to a commercial truck for the National Archives.
On one occasion cited in the indictment, Nauta found several boxes of documents spilled on the floor in a storage room. One document was marked as classified and accessible only to the so-called Fives Eyes intelligence countries of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Britain and the United States.
Nauta also texted with a Trump family member, who told him that their plane would not have room for the boxes of documents, because they would be full of luggage.
Nauta allegedly made false statements to investigators about the location of the documents. He is also accused of helping move 64 boxes from the storage room to Trump’s residence between May 23, 2022, and June 2, 2022.
Nauta and Trump allegedly hid this information from one of Trump’s lawyers and then falsely certified that all documents had been turned over to the government, officials say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n