Judge bans Trump from discussing case with his butler

Every president has a red phone, but so did Donald Trump Red button at his desk in the oval office. When I pressed it, a butler appeared at the door with a Coca Cola Light. It was Walt Nautaa naval officer promoted to culinary expert who would eventually become his butler and personal assistant.

Nauta is also, the prosecution claims, his complicit in obstruction of justice to withhold classified national security documents that could cost the former president a sentence of 400 years and 90 to his assistant. Because Nauta is also one of the main witnesses in the case, Judge Jonathan Goodman ordered Trump on Tuesday not to discuss the case with Nauta or any other witnesses. His lawyers strongly protested. All the witnesses are employees of the president, how can you not talk to them? After an argument, the judge agreed that they should continue to communicate until they discuss the case, for which they must do so exclusively through their lawyers.

There’s an additional problem: Nauta doesn’t have local lawyers in Miami. With this excuse, he obtained an extension of the criminal prosecution for two weeks, which, it seems, was taken from the Trumpian handbookknown for tinker with the courts postpone to infinity requests that he receives from time to time. It is hard to believe that Nauta does not follow his advice.

The soft-spoken 40-year-old, born in a modest village on the island of Guam, is one of two people who followed the president when he left the White House to help him with his transition. After a few months, he returned to Washington, leaving a void that Trump’s aides were unable to fill. They didn’t find anyone like that obedient, modest and unambitious that he felt content to dress him, carry his briefcase, and fulfill his most trivial wishes for the rest of his days, without wanting to ascend to higher positions.

With the complicity of his wife Melania, the former president’s advisers convinced the naval officer to leave his position in the Armed Forces in September 2021, after 20 years of service, and become the tycoon’s personal assistant, initially paid in the amount of $10,000 a month (more than 9,000 euros) for a political action platform that raises funds for his campaign, in addition to the $769 (€708) he receives from the federal government for working for the former president and bonuses that boosted his base salary to $14,500 (€13,300) last December, plus a government supplement .

He was the one who in at least half a dozen times moved boxes of classified documents which the Ministry of Justice tried to deliver to the State Archives and other government bodies. However, when interviewed by the FBI, he assured that he had never seen the boxes. “Honestly, I wish I could help them,” he answered in his first interview.

loyal servant

Various sources from Trump’s environment assure the American media that Nauta has no hidden intentions, but that he is simply a loyal servant. Despite always keeping his distance from his boss, he dined alone with him on Monday night at the El Doral golf course where the tycoon spent the night before turning himself in to a Miami court.

Nauta came with him to court in their black vehicle with smoked windows and sat together on the bench. He was also later at Cafe Versailles, helping take selfies of the Cuban-Americans whom Trump wooed in the triumphal election parade, on the way to the airport, and accompanied him on the plane back to Bedminster, New Jersey, along with his lawyers.

It’s hard to think they haven’t discussed the historic day that put a former President of the United States in federal custody for the first time, but there, in the air, there will be no more witnesses than a handful of loyalists and lawyers with the confidentiality of the office.

“He is a good man, they want to destroy his life”, Trump defended him on social media, ready to court him with all his charm. The humble butler has the fate of his boss in his hands and Trump knows it, because of his cooperation with Justice could be a key witness convince the jury of his guilt and put the former president in prison for the first time.