Former President Donald Trump‘s aide and co-defendant pleaded not guilty on Thursday to additional federal charges alleging he misled investigators who attempted to retrieve classified records from Mar-a-Lago after the former president left office.
Walt Nauta, a valet for Trump, pleaded not guilty to charges of obstruction of justice and false statements before U.S. Magistrate Judge Shaniek Mills Maynard. Another co-defendant in the case, Carlos De Oliveira, a property manager at Trump’s resort home, did not enter a plea because he has not yet obtained a local attorney.
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Special counsel Jack Smith has accused the pair of co-defendants of conspiring with the former president to block a yearlong investigation into his retention of sensitive records.
Trump said he would not appear at the Alto Lee Adams Sr. United States Courthouse in Fort Pierce. He preemptively entered his plea in court filings ahead of the Thursday arraignment, and a magistrate judge accepted his not guilty plea to three charges added in late July, including two counts of obstruction and one count of willfully retaining national defense information.
The trio of defendants is facing new charges from the July 27 superseding indictment, including allegedly plotting to obstruct justice by attempting to delete surveillance footage at Trump’s estate “to conceal information from the FBI and grand jury,” according to the indictment.
Trump allegedly spoke with Nauta and De Oliveira, including a 24-minute phone call with De Oliveira one day after receiving a subpoena.
“Nauta and De Oliveira went to the security guard booth where the surveillance video is displayed on monitors, walked with a flashlight through the tunnel where the storage room was located, and observed and pointed out surveillance cameras,” the indictment stated.
Trump, in recent days, has been fighting a protective order sought by the government, which aims to prevent him from publicly sharing any classified records that will be provided to his attorneys during discovery.
The former president’s counsel asked the presiding judge in the case, Judge Aileen Cannon, on Wednesday to allow the government to create a sensitive compartmented information facility, or SCIF, at Mar-a-Lago so that he and his attorneys can discuss classified information without the need to travel to a SCIF at a separate location, arguing it would be more cost-effective.
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On Thursday, attorneys for Nauta filed a motion opposing the government’s proposed protective order restricting his access to classified information, invoking his U.S. Navy service.
“Mr. Nauta, a United States citizen, is a veteran of the United States Navy [who] served in the Executive Branch as a respected aide before being honorably discharged from the Navy,” defense attorneys Stanley Woodward and Sasha Dadan wrote in a legal brief.
