FBI Interview With Trump Codefendant Waltine Nauta Unsealed

Waltine Nauta visits a restaurant with former President Donald Trump in Miami, Fla., on June 13, 2023. Alex Brandon/AP Photo

An interview Trump codefendant Waltine Nauta gave to the FBI was unsealed on April 12 after defense attorneys claimed prosecutors had flouted court instructions by filing their own responses to motions publicly and receiving widespread news coverage.

The docketing comes as U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon holds a hearing on the same day on Mr. Nauta’s motions to dismiss the indictment.

A testimony that Mr. Nauta gave to a grand jury in 2022 remains under seal on the condition that prosecutors justify to Judge Cannon during the hearing why it should stay undocketed.

Mr. Nauta served in the Navy and was staffed as former President Donald Trump’s valet in 2017. Upon retirement, he took up a spot as a personal aide to President Trump in August 2021. He was charged alongside the former president last year for allegedly concealing classified documents and conspiracy to obstruct justice, pleading not guilty to eight counts.

He has filed motions to dismiss the charges on the grounds of unconstitutional vagueness and selective and vindictive prosecution, and has demanded a bill of particulars.

FBI Interview

No one was aware that Mr. Nauta gave the interview at the time, beyond his legal counsel who was present.

“What about the former President? Does he know?” he was asked.

“No, as far as he knows, I’m out jogging,” Mr. Nauta said. He also said he had not been given any instruction on what to say or not say to government agencies.

In the 100-page interview, Mr. Nauta tells two individuals with the FBI that he did help move boxes from Mar-a-Lago on Jan. 17, loading them onto a truck that was receiving the documents for the National Archive and Records Administration.

“We moved the boxes. We transported [them] to a car ... we loaded it onto a truck. [Redacted] signed the papers, and that was it,” Mr. Nauta said.

Mr. Nauta told them he did not pay attention to news stories and didn’t know the details of a news article about the documents being moved that one of the individuals questioned him about.

Mr. Nauta said he recalled about 15 to 17 boxes, and the truck was so “huge” that it couldn’t get on the property.

“I was like this is a lot, this is a lot of truck for this many boxes,” he said. The truck had to park right outside of Mar-a-Lago and they brought the boxes out in a car, he said. The boxes had been moved from Pine Hall, outside President Trump’s suite, Mr. Nauta said, but he did not know if they had been there “the whole time,” and did not know what the boxes were for.

“I just know that they were in Pine Hall when [redacted] asked me to come,” he said.

An FBI agent asked Mr. Nauta to describe the layout of the room and the area around it, first asking Mr. Nauta to sketch it, and then sketching it himself based on Mr. Nauta’s responses. They also asked how to get there from the front door of Mar-a-Lago.

Mr. Nauta said that President Trump preferred working with paper, so it was not unusual to have someone bring a box of documents to him. Mr. Nauta often brought him a box of newspapers but said the boxes he otherwise dealt with contained personal items like “hairspray, shampoo” but not documents.

“Do you have any information that could—that would—that could help us understand, like, where they were kept, how they were kept, were they secured, were they locked? Something that makes the intelligence community feel better about these things, you know?” he was asked.

“I wish I could tell you,” Mr. Nauta responded. “I honestly just don’t know.”

The FBI also asked Mr. Nauta to “hypothesize” where classified information could be kept, because “you pretty much have access to the entire place.” They continued to press him to “guess” where they could be stored after he declined to.

Mr. Nauta said he did not want to assume anything, and added that he didn’t have access to all of the property.

The FBI noted that the boxes where documents were kept looked the same as the ones with personal items, and asked about the foot traffic to and from storage rooms where there could have been boxes. They asked whether there was a secure classified information location, and Mr. Nauta said he was not aware of one.

He also said he was not aware if he had overheard President Trump talking with others about classified information after the president left office, or rumors related to that. He confirmed seeing unmarked white boxes, which he believed contained personal items, in other rooms such as laundry rooms, but was reluctant to specify how many he saw.

Public Court Records

This week, Judge Cannon ordered the documents to be publicly docketed, finding that the prosecutors’ arguments of witness safety and harassment concerns can be satisfied by sufficiently redacting identifying information.

Prosecutors with special counsel Jack Smith’s office have made several bids to keep materials in this case under seal. They secured a victory this week when Judge Cannon allowed potential witnesses to remain anonymous for the time being.

However, the judge criticized the prosecutors heavily for only making generalized arguments, citing no case law or facts, when they made what she described alternately as a “broad,” “sweeping,” and “undifferentiated” request.

She also noted that some of the delays in case proceedings have been due to the timing of the special counsel’s request, and criticized the prosecutors for filing certain documents that should have been under seal on the public docket while fighting to deny defendants the ability to do the same.

Mr. Nauta’s motion to dismiss based on selective and vindictive prosecution remains undocketed as prosecutors have requested more time to argue that it should not be unsealed.

Vagueness

Defense attorneys argue that the indictment is defective for not providing specific details as to what acts Mr. Nauta has been charged with.

They point to Mr. Nauta’s depositions where he details the times he helped move boxes and when he was aware of the contents. The indictment does not clearly state that the dates and boxes Mr. Nauta mentioned pertain to the movement of classified documents intended to obstruct or conceal, they argued.

Furthermore, five of these charges “require the government to prove that he acted ‘corruptly,’” the motion reads, and the relevant portions are missing. They urged the judge to dismiss the counts for either failure to state a claim or for vagueness.