A grand jury in Miami, Florida, indicted former President Donald Trump in early June 2023 on 37 counts, including 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information.
Prosecutors said Trump had unlawful possession and control of classified documents on national defense in his Mar-a-Lago residence. He willfully removed them from the White House, retained them without permission, and failed to return the documents to the U.S. government as required by law.
Federal law prohibits the removal of classified documents to unauthorized sites.
The other charges against Trump included making false statements and conspiracy to obstruct justice.
https://www.justice.gov/storage/US_v_Trump-Nauta_23-80101.pdf
https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/trump-indictment-classified-documents-06-09-23/index.html
CNN reported that it was “the first time a former president has faced federal charges.”
https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/trump-indictment-classified-documents-06-09-23/index.html
Special Counsel Jack Smith’s indictments were grounded in Trump’s violation of the federal Espionage Act – a World War I-era law aimed at cracking down on “disloyal wartime activities.”
A section of the Espionage Act “makes it illegal for anyone who has ‘unauthorized possession of, access to, or control over’ national defense information — such as documents, blueprints, photos, plans and more — and who ‘has reason to believe [the information] could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation’ then either shares it with unauthorized people or ‘willfully retains the same and fails’ to return it, ABC News reported.
The investigation into Trump’s mishandling of classified documents ensnared three lesser-known figures: Walt Nauta, Carlos De Oliveira, and Yuscil Taveras.
Nauta was also indicted for conspiring with Trump “on five counts of concealing or withholding documents and taking part in a conspiracy to obstruct justice,” NPR reported.
https://www.npr.org/2023/07/06/1186052042/walt-nauta-plea-donald-trump-indictment
According to the indictment, Nauta lied to investigators when he was interviewed by the FBI in May 2022, according to the indictment. He allegedly denied that he was unaware of moving 15 boxes into Trump’s residence.
“When 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, 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 said.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/09/politics/walt-nauta-trump-indicted/index.html
Who is Walt Nauta and how did he end up helping Trump on moving day?
According to NPR and other media sources, Nauta, a Navy veteran, got a job working “in the White House mess” when Trump was president. He then worked his way up to serving as a valet to Trump.
https://www.npr.org/2023/07/06/1186052042/walt-nauta-plea-donald-trump-indictment
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/who-is-walt-nauta
Nauta wasn’t just any valet, mind you.
Trump wouldn’t trust any valet to smuggle classified information to his Mar-a-Lago residence.
Nauta was the guy who carried Diet Cokes to Trump whenever the president pushed a red button on his desk.
Really.
When Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff, saw the president push the red button, he said he braced for whatever sonic boom, breaking glass, or cloud of smoke I assumed was coming. I sat there with my eyes wide.”
Seconds later, a naval steward – perhaps even Nauta — brought Trump an ice-cold glass of Diet Coke.
https://www.businessinsider.com/mark-meadows-nervous-trump-red-diet-coke-button-book-2021-12
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/live-updates-trumps-federal-arraignment-in-miami
https://www.npr.org/2023/07/06/1186052042/walt-nauta-plea-donald-trump-indictment
Nauta distinguished himself by fetching Cokes for the president.
William Shakespeare was no doubt thinking of people like Walt Nauta when he wrote:
“Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.”
Trump hired Nauta to work for him at Mar-a-Lago after leaving the White House.
The work allegedly involved helping Trump stash classified documents.
It is unlikely when Trump asked Nauta to conspire with him, he told him that what he was doing was punishable by a prison term of 20 years.
https://www.npr.org/2023/07/06/1186052042/walt-nauta-plea-donald-trump-indictment
PBS reported that Nauta was the latest of Trump associates to face prison sentences for doing what Trump told them.
Michael Cohen, Trump’s attorney and fixer, and Allen Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer at the Trump Organization, each went to prison for following Trump’s orders.
“Loyalty to Donald Trump is like First Avenue in Manhattan: one way,” Cohen said. History has shown time and again that Donald cares for no one other than himself.”
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/who-is-walt-nauta
SEE MICHAEL COHEN
SEE ALAN WEISSELBERG,
Nauta wasn’t the only low-level flunky that Trump dragged into his cesspool of criminal activities.
In late July, Trump was indicted on additional charges of “obstruction and willful retention of national defense information.”
Prosecutors also indicted another in the investigation: Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira, who was accused of conspiring with Nauta to conceal security video footage from investigators.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/read-trumps-new-charges-in-the-classified-documents-case
Forbes reported that, according to the indictment, De Oliveira and Nauta were caught on surveillance cameras in June moving 30 boxes of documents.
De Oliveira allegedly talked to Yuscil Taveras, who oversaw the surveillance camera footage at Mar-a-Lago, saying that “the boss” wanted the surveillance footage deleted. Prosecutors accused De Oliveira of draining the resort’s pool that caused flooding in the room that contained the servers holding the surveillance footage.
De Oliveira has been accused of making false statements to the FBI during the investigation.
The Washington Post reported that the indictment said that Taveras told Oliveira “that he would not know how to do that, and that he did not believe that he would have the rights to do that.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/07/28/carlos-deoliveira-trump-indictment/
Under Trump’s influence, Oliveira, like Nauta, went from the relative anonymity of being a valet, maintenance worker, and property manager to becoming a defendant in a federal crime.
“The path he followed is a familiar one in the world of Mr. Trump, who often views relationships in terms of leverage and obsesses constantly about loyalty. In his business career, as a candidate and as president, Mr. Trump has frequently plucked subordinates from trouble or obscurity and given them a lifeline — and, by extension, a sense of obligation to him,” the New York Times said.
“Those opportunities and obligations have sometimes come with a cost — including, as in the case of Mr. De Oliveira, serious legal jeopardy.
After Oliveira told Taveras that Trump wanted him to delete the surveillance footage, Taveras repeated the story to other work colleagues, telling them “that he was unwilling to cross a line and potentially go to prison,” the Times reported.
Taveras then repeated the story to a grand jury, whose testimony helped prosecutors indict Trump, Nauta, and Oliveira, the Times said.
The newspaper said that Taveras was the first Trump employee “to have signed a cooperation agreement to avoid indictment.”
Trump has falsely said that the documents were declassified because he had the power to declassify documents.
“You’re the president of the United States, you can declassify just by saying it’s declassified, even by thinking about it,” he told Sean Hannity of Fox News.
This isn’t true.
Trump continues to maintain he did nothing wrong.
“I had nothing to hide, nor do I now,” Trump tweeted on Truth Social. “Nobody said I wasn’t allowed to look at the personal records that I brought with me from the White House.”
Trump also said nobody explicitly said he couldn’t take the documents.
Nobody said explicitly said he couldn’t sexually assault writer E. Jean Carroll.
Nobody said explicitly that he couldn’t grab a woman by the privates.
Nobody said explicitly he couldn’t pressure another country’s head to state to dig up dirt on a political rival.
Nobody said explicitly he wouldn’t encourage his supporters to violently overthrow a presidential election.
Trump niece, Mary Trump, a clinical psychologist, described her uncle as a “sociopath.”
https://www.democracynow.org/2020/8/7/mary_trump_how_dysfunctional_family_shaped
Psychology Today defines “sociopathy” as referring to “a pattern of antisocial behaviors and attitudes, including manipulation, deceit, aggression, and a lack of empathy for others. Sociopathy is a non-diagnostic term . . Sociopaths may or may not break the law, but by exploiting and manipulating others, they violate the trust that the human enterprise runs on.”
Mary Trump added this about her uncle.
“Donald’s pathologies are so complex and his behaviors so often inexplicable that coming up with an accurate and comprehensive diagnosis would require a full battery of psychological and neuropsychological tests that he’ll never sit for,” Mary Trump writes in her book, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man.
