Donald Trump said Friday that a personal aide, who is believed to be a key witness in the classified documents case facing the former US president, is being indicted by prosecutors.
Trump, in a post on his Truth Social platform, did not specify the alleged charges facing Walt Nauta, who was the president’s military valet at the White House.
“I have just learned that the ‘Thugs’ from the Department of Injustice will be Indicting a wonderful man, Walt Nauta,” Trump wrote.
“They are trying to destroy his life, like the lives of so many others, hoping that he will say bad things about ‘Trump,'” he said. “He is strong, brave, and a Great Patriot.”
ABC News said Nauta had been indicted by the same Florida grand jury that charged Trump in the classified documents case but the specific charges against him were not known.
Nauta, a US Navy veteran, served as Trump’s military valet while he was president and has gone on to work as his personal aide since he left the White House.
Trump is facing charges related to his retention of classified documents after he left the presidency in January 2021.
Hundreds of documents were recovered by the FBI in a raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida after he failed to comply with a subpoena to hand them over.
The Washington Post reported recently that Nauta was a “critical witness” in the Justice Department investigation which led to Trump’s indictment.
The newspaper said one of Nauta’s responsibilities at Mar-a-Lago was to “to move and carry cardboard boxes in which Trump likes to keep mementos and papers.”
The Post said Nauta, when first questioned by the FBI, denied any knowledge that sensitive documents were being stored at Mar-a-Lago.
“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,” the newspaper said.
Trump, the first former US president to face federal criminal charges, is to appear in court in Miami on Tuesday for a first hearing in the classified documents case.
