Trump Aide Pleads Not Guilty in Classified Documents Case
Ms. Dadan has also been active in Republican politics in recent years, mounting an unsuccessful campaign for the Florida House in 2018.
The indictment against Mr. Trump and Mr. Nauta was filed by the office of the special counsel Jack Smith. It describes how Mr. Nauta repeatedly moved boxes at Mr. Trump’s request in and out of a storage room at Mar-a-Lago, the former president’s private club and residence in Florida, during a critical period: the weeks between the issuance of a subpoena in May 2022 demanding the return of all classified documents in Mr. Trump’s possession and a visit to Mar-a-Lago soon after by federal prosecutors seeking to enforce the subpoena and collect any relevant materials.
According to the indictment, Mr. Nauta removed 64 boxes from the storage room during those weeks but only brought back about 30, with the rest unaccounted for. All of this took place, the indictment says, before one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, M. Evan Corcoran, began to sort through the material kept in the storage room in an effort to find any remaining classified material and turn it over to the government.
Mr. Nauta’s arraignment — a brief and largely ceremonial procedure — had none of the circuslike atmosphere that marked Mr. Trump’s own arraignment in Miami. The hearing in front of Magistrate Judge Edwin G. Torres lasted about 10 minutes as Mr. Woodward did little more than enter Mr. Nauta’s plea and request a jury trial.
Mr. Nauta, who served as one of Mr. Trump’s White House valets before going to work for him at Mar-a-Lago, is now in the delicate position of being both the former president’s co-defendant in a high-stakes federal prosecution and one of his most intimate employees. Complicating matters, Mr. Trump is under a court order not to discuss the facts of the indictment with more than 80 people involved in the case — including Mr. Nauta, whose job is to shadow the former president everywhere he goes and to cater to his various whims and needs.
Source: The New York Times
