The day after Donald Trump was indicted on charges related to his alleged post-presidency mishandling of classified documents, the former president revealed that his longtime aide and valet, Walt Nauta, had also been charged by the Justice Department.
In a Truth Social post, Trump described Nauta as a “wonderful man” and former Navy enlistee who had “served proudly with me in the White House, retired as Senior Chief, and then transitioned into private life as a personal aide.” But the former president left out a critical detail of Nauta’s 2021 transition from the White House to service on his staff at Mar-a-Lago. The Daily Beast reported on Thursday that in the weeks before Trump hired him, Nauta had been removed from his White House position amid a storm of sexual misconduct allegations.
According to The Daily Beast, in the late summer of 2021, Nauta was stripped of his White House security clearance, escorted from the property, and demoted. He would retire from the Navy in September of that same year, shortly after accepting a position on the former president’s staff.
Two people with knowledge of the matter told The Daily Beast that Nauta’s White House sacking was related to accusations of sexual misconduct by multiple women, including allegations of “revenge porn,” fraternization, adultery, and harassment, all of which are prohibited by the Navy.
The alleged harassment reportedly took place while Nauta was actively serving as Trump’s White House valet. Nauta, who was married, was accused of violating the military’s prohibitions on fraternization and adultery by engaging in abusive relationships with the women, at least one of which held a lower rank than him. Sources also told The Daily Beast that Nauta had threatened the women with the release of nude photographs.
The details of Nauta’s departure from the Navy remain under wraps, but what is clear is that Nauta ended his service shortly after an investigation into the allegations — and his admission to a supervisor of the relationships with the women. Regardless, he was working for Trump at Mar-a-Lago by the time he left the service.
In June of 2023, Nauta was indicted on six charges stemming from the Justice Department’s probe into the former president’s mishandling of classified documents. The charges against Nauta included conspiracy to obstruct justice, withholding a document or record, corruptly concealing a document or record, corruptly concealing a document in a federal investigation, scheme to conceal, and making false statements and representations. Weeks later, the DOJ added two additional charges of obstruction to Nauta’s indictment. He has pleaded not guilty to all counts.
The charges against Nauta largely revolve around what prosecutors allege were efforts by the former president to obstruct federal authorities’ investigation into the classified documents being stored at Mar-a-Lago. Security footage from the property showed Nauta moving boxes out of a storage room where the Justice Department alleges the former president kept hundreds of classified documents both before and after the DOJ ordered Trump to return all classified material at the property.
Prosecutors also allege that in June of 2022, the day after investigators had requested “[a]ny and all surveillance records, videos, images, photographs and/or CCTV from internal cameras” at certain locations at the Mar-a-Lago Club, Nauta instructed another Mar-a-Lago employee to aid in having the security footage destroyed.
Trump and Nauta’s trial is scheduled to begin in May of this year. Given the many sexual harassment and assaults against the former president — who just last week was ordered to pay $83 million in damages to E. Jean Carroll, whom he sexually assaulted in the ‘90s and then defamed — it seems like he and Nauta may have more in common than their indictments.
