Trump’s employee was promised a pardon for lying to the FBI

Donald Trump’s team promised his valet Walt Nauta that if the former president earns a second term, he would be pardoned in the classified documents scandal.

Nauta (photo), Trump’s co-defendant in the case, was accused of lying to the FBI. But the clerk was told he would be pardoned if Trump earned another term in the White House, according to a November 2022 interview with the FBI.

The interview was given to the FBI by a witness named “Person 16” and described as someone who worked in the Trump White House. An edited summary was made public on Monday. The lawsuit against federal secret documents is one of four criminal cases against Trump. This stems from the former president removing classified documents from the White House and taking the materials to his Mar-a-Lago residence after leaving office in 2021.

On Tuesday, Nauta and members of Trump’s communications team were spotted leaving Trump Tower in New York City, amid the second week of trial in the criminal case over the former president’s hush money payment to adult star Stormy Daniels . The case accuses Trump of falsifying business documents related to the payment and is the first to go to trial in the criminal cases against Trump.

The witness refused to be recorded during questioning. The summary showed that person 16 said it would be “a much greater risk to him in the Trump world” if his voice or likeness were recorded. “NAUTA was told by the people at FPOTUS that his investigation was going nowhere, that it was politically motivated and “much ado about nothing,” according to the interview summary. It adds, “NAUTA was also told that even if he is charged with lying to the FBI, FPOTUS will pardon him in 2024.”

FPOTUS refers to ‘Former President of the United States’ Donald Trump. Nauta’s promised pardon depends on whether Trump earns another term in the White House in the 2024 election, according to notes from the interview.

In June 2023, special counsel Jack Smith accused the Navy veteran of lying to the FBI and obstructing the investigation into the removal of classified documents from the White House instead of turning them over to the National Archives. Trump was also charged in the case with obstruction and misuse of classified and national defense information.

Both Nauta and Trump pleaded not guilty. Person 16 has not spoken to Nauta since Trump took office, according to the edited summary of the FBI interview.

It is also not stated how the witness was aware of the promised pardon. The witness visited Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida several times after Trump’s presidency and had told the former president during a November 2021 visit to return “all” of the documents he had to the National Archives.

‘Let them come here and get everything. Don’t give them a noble reason to indict you because they will,” the witness told Trump, according to the witness’s testimony revealed in the summary.

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