July 6 (UPI) — Donald Trump aide Walt Nauta pleaded not guilty Thursday on charges related to the former president’s handling classified documents.
Nauta entered the not guilty plea to six criminal counts including conspiracy to commit obstruction and making false statement charges in a Miami federal court after several delays.
He previously missed one hearing because weather forced a cancellation of his flight on June 27 and a second because of his search for a local attorney on June 13.
Nauta, a Navy veteran, first started to work for Trump while he was in the White House and followed him to Mar-a-Lago in Florida after Trump left office.
Special counsel Jack Smith is accusing Nauta of helping Trump hide boxes containing classified information from investigators who wanted them returned to Washington, D.C.
The arraignment comes a day after details from newly unsealed portions of the affidavit used to secure a search warrant of Mar-a-Lago last summer on showed the effort Trump allegedly made to hide documents from federal investigators.
The less redacted version of the affidavit, released Wednesday, revealed how officials from the Justice Department became more concerned about the documents after viewing security cameras they received from Trump’s company.
The video showed Nauta moving boxes out of a storage space that Trump had previously said housed classified documents, as he could be seen removing 64 boxes but only returning about 30.
“[T]he current location of the boxes that were removed from the storage room area but not returned to is unknown,” the affidavit said.
Prosecutors accused Trump of purposely ignoring a May 2022 subpoena requiring him to return the documents and then taking steps to hide the documents from investigators.
The new release, though, did not disclose all the reasons that federal prosecutors thought Trump had confidential documents.
Last month, Trump was indicted by a federal grand jury on 37 counts related to his alleged mishandling of classified documents. Special counsel Jack Smith has overseen the investigation by the U.S. Justice Department since his appointment last fall.
The investigation focused on Trump’s handling of more than 100 classified security documents after his term in the White House ended along with his effort to obstruct investigators in taking those documents back.
