Newly unsealed grand jury testimony from Trump’s valet helps explain FBI’s desire to search Mar-a-Lago
CNN
Donald Trump’s valet told investigators before the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago in 2022 that he randomly chose boxes of documents to return to the National Archives and Trump himself directed that dozens more boxes located at the resort wouldn’t be returned, according to recently unsealed court filings.
Donald Trump’s valet told investigators before the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago in 2022 that he randomly chose boxes of documents to return to the National Archives and Trump himself directed that dozens more boxes located at the resort wouldn’t be returned, according to recently unsealed court filings. The filings reviewed by CNN shed new light on the critical role that Walt Nauta, now Trump’s co-defendant in the classified documents case, played in giving the FBI justification to execute the search warrant on the former president’s Florida resort. Nauta testified to a grand jury two months before the August 2022 search about boxes he took from Mar-a-Lago’s storage room in January 2022. When one grand juror asked Nauta if he would “just pick some off the top,” Nauta said “yes,” according to a newly unsealed transcript and unredacted FBI search warrant affidavit. At one point in the process of choosing boxes for Trump to review before returning them to the Archives, Nauta said that Trump “was like, okay, that’s it.” Nauta’s account was corroborated by a second witness, whose identity is not publicly known. Both said that Trump gave the direction not to give the National Archives any more boxes.
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