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.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
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.
Trump has been charged by special counsel Jack Smith with criminal mishandling of national security records and attempting to obstruct justice after the federal government subpoenaed their return.
Nauta, who eventually stopped cooperating with the special counsel, is now claiming he was selectively and vindictively prosecuted because he refused to return to the grand jury for another round of testimony unless certain conditions were met, according to court pleadings he has made in the case that the judge is still considering.
Nauta was referred to as “Witness 5” in the warrant but can be identified by comparing the affidavit to the transcript from his June 2022 grand jury appearance that was unsealed in recent days, as well as to other details that have come out in the criminal proceedings.
According to the affidavit, the Justice Department sought from the Trump Organization Mar-a-Lago’s surveillance footage in the immediate days after Nauta’s grand jury testimony.
In a separate set of filings made public in the Florida federal court case, Nauta also is asking US District Judge Aileen Cannon to throw out evidence that prosecutors obtained in searches of his phone and email accounts.
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