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Federal authorities have charged a longtime aide to Donald Trump whose responsibilities included moving and carrying cardboard boxes in which the former president kept mementos and papers, Trump announced on social media Friday.
The criminal case against Trump for alleged obstruction and mishandling of classified documents is expected to be overseen at least initially by Judge Aileen M. Cannon - the federal judge in Florida who last year appointed a special master in the case and temporarily halted FBI access to classified documents taken in a court-approved search. Trump has denied any wrongdoing.
Also Friday, two of Trump’s top lawyers said they were quitting his legal team, moments after the newly indicted former president said he would be bringing on new lawyers In a joint statement, Jim Trusty and John Rowley said they had “tendered our resignations as counsel to President Trump, and we will no longer represent him on either the indicted case or the January 6 investigation.”
Republicans were quick to criticize what they called the weaponization of the Justice Department, ahead of Tuesday’s expected arraignment, but few defended Trump himself.
[Here are the charges against Trump and what they mean]
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Prosecutors have viewed Nauta - a military valet in the Trump White House and now a personal aide to Trump - as a critical witness in the investigation into possible mishandling of classified government materials at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida residence and private club.
“I have just learned that the “Thugs” from the Department of Injustice will be Indicting a wonderful man, Walt Nauta, a member of the U.S. Navy, who served proudly with me in the White House, retired as Senior Chief, and then transitioned into private life as a personal aide,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Trump advisers also said Nauta had been charged. A lawyer for Nauta declined to comment.
The indictment remained under seal Friday, and the exact charges were not yet clear.
[Trump case presents extraordinary test of Attorney General Merrick Garland’s integrity]
When first questioned by FBI agents in the spring of 2022, Nauta denied any knowledge that sensitive documents were being stored at Trump’s club, The Washington Post has reported.
But when questioned a second time, he told investigators that he had moved boxes at Trump’s direction after prosecutors sent a subpoena seeking the return of all documents marked classified and kept at Mar-a-Lago.
Multiple people who viewed the summons ordering Trump to appear in federal court next week confirmed that the case has been assigned to Cannon, a young conservative judge who was nominated to the bench by Trump in 2020.
After the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s home and private club in Florida, Cannon ruled in Trump’s favor last year when his legal team argued that he retained his executive privileges after leaving office and therefore had the right to shield at least some of the documents from review.
A conservative-leaning appeals court later struck down her controversial decision. But her ruling temporarily blocked the Justice Department from reviewing the seized materials, slowing down the investigation.
The court-issued summons given to Trump’s lawyers included the names of both Cannon and Federal Magistrate Judge Bruce E. Reinhart, according to the people familiar with the document. Reinhart is the judge who signed off on the government’s request for a warrant to search Mar-a-Lago.
[4 takeaways from Trump’s federal indictment in documents case]
Trump could make his initial appearance in front of Reinhart on Tuesday in the federal courthouse in Miami, but it is possible that Cannon ends up presiding over that appearance instead.
The evidence leading to the indictment by a federal grand jury in Miami includes an audio recording from 2021 in which he talks about an apparently secret document and says, “As president, I could have declassified it, but now I can’t,” a person familiar with a transcript of the remarks said Friday.
It’s the second time Trump has been indicted. He was indicted in New York in March on allegations of falsifying business documents related to hush money payments and has pleaded not guilty. He is also under investigation for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.