Judge Unseals Grand Jury Interview of Trump Codefendant in Documents Case

Judge Cannon is presiding over a historic case alleging President Trump mishandled classified documents after leaving office, with charges against his aide and Mar-a-Lago property manager as co-conspirators.

Counsel for Mr. Nauta, a personal aide to President Trump, has been after the release of the transcript since last summer. Counsel for President Trump had similarly asked for the release of this and other materials from the grand jury, alleging misconduct on the part of the prosecutors with special counsel Jack Smith’s office.

Interview

Mr. Nauta was interviewed before the grand jury on June 21, 2022, and stated that he had little knowledge of classified information. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay Bratt asked several questions about documents and boxes in President Trump’s possession, returning similar answers each time that Mr. Nauta would not have had this knowledge.

Mr. Nauta gave similar responses as he did in an earlier voluntary interview with FBI personnel. Defense attorneys have submitted these interviews as evidence toward their argument that Mr. Nauta was never involved in the alleged willful concealment of classified information, as he had no knowledge of what was in any documents he may have been asked to move.

In one exchange, Mr. Bratt asked, “What’s the flow of paper to the former president? How would he be getting these documents?”

Mr. Nauta answered that one way was that he, or another aide, would pick up a black bag from the situation room at 7:30 a.m. and bring it to President Trump’s residence. Asked about its contents, Mr. Nauta said, “I have no idea what that can consist of.”

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Grand jurors asked further questions about what happened to the black bag after he brought it to President Trump’s residence.

“So no one took possession of the PDB [presidential daily briefing]? You put it on a table, and no one was there, and then you left it?” one asked.

Mr. Nauta said, “well, we would knock — whoever was dropping it off between the three of us, we would announce ourselves, put it on there, and then close the door.”

As with the FBI interview, prosecutors asked several questions about a storage room that stored several boxes, including white boxes that were the same type used to store documents, and Mr. Nauta said he would only be able to assume the specifics they were asking for.

In answering further questions from grand jurors, Mr. Nauta said there were brown boxes, often storing memorabilia, which were labeled. White banker boxes belonged to President Trump and were often unlabeled. Sometimes two of those boxes went into a bigger brown box and were sometimes labeled.

He clarified that some of the boxes he moved were labeled with Mar-a-Lago or President Trump’s name, and some were not labeled.

Mr. Bratt also asked, “Did you ever lift any of those boxes?”

“Yes,” Mr. Nauta answered.

“Can you tell from lifting the boxes what may have been in them?”

“No, I can’t tell you,” Mr. Nauta answered. “Some were heavy; some were light.”

“Would you say that it is, or was not consistent with papers being in those boxes?” Mr. Bratt asked.

“I wouldn’t recall. I don’t want to assume,” Mr. Nauta.

Asked if he ever opened these boxes, he said he did not.

Judge to Rule on Selective and Vindictive Prosecution Motions

Numerous motions to dismiss have been filed between the three defendants, and Judge Cannon has already dismissed motions based on unconstitutional vagueness and the Presidential Records Act.

Among the remaining motions to dismiss are ones filed for selective and vindictive prosecution, and the requests for grand jury materials are related to this defense.

They alleged that prosecutor Mr. Bratt had engaged in “inappropriate” conduct with Mr. Nauta’s attorney Stanley Woodward, suggesting the attorney’s potential judgeship nomination by President Joe Biden could be “implicated by Mr. Nauta’s decision not to ‘cooperate’ with the government’s investigation.”

Mr. Woodward alleged that Mr. Bratt told him, “I wouldn’t want you to do anything to mess that up.”

Counsel also took issue with the use of the word “cooperation” by the government and subsequent media reports, noting that Mr. Nauta has been cooperative the entire investigation and providing all information he was legally obligated to.

They argued that Mr. Bratt’s conversation with Mr. Woodward may not be an isolated event, wanting assurance Mr. Nauta was not pressured during his interview with the grand jury. Mr. Bratt had interviewed Mr. Nauta before the grand jury. The initial request had been made after Mr. Nauta received a target letter saying he was likely to be indicted.

Separately, Trump attorneys had made requests for grand jury materials, including interview transcripts, for similar reasons. They filed a motion to “unseal Grand Jury transcripts from the SCO’s investigation so as to ascertain whether there is additional evidence of potential abuse of the grand jury process” last summer.

They argued they believed the special counsel’s office had “made inappropriate and unethical comments in the presence of the Grand Jury; pressured witnesses to waive their rights; implied culpability upon the rightful invocation of testimonial privileges” and other ethical violations. One example cited was the prosecutors’ interview of a Trump attorney, during which they asked him “no fewer than forty-five times” to break attorney-client privilege, and when the attorney declined, the prosecutors had implied to the grand jury the attorney was refusing to provide information the grand jury had a right to know.

In Judge Cannon’s court, defendants have argued that the indictment should be dismissed on grounds of vindictive and selective prosecution, alleging the prosecution is politically motivated. Attorneys for President Trump have argued his treatment is vastly different from other former presidents and officials who were not prosecuted for retaining classified information, and his codefendants have argued they are being targeted for not providing prosecutors with information to implicate President Trump.