Prosecutors In Trump Documents Probe Getting Closer To Forcing Aides To Testify

Federal prosecutors looking into former President Donald Trump‘s possible mishandling of classified White House documents is upping pressure on Trump’s aides to provide testimony.

A New York Times report says that they plan to focus on Walt Nauta, who worked as a military valet and cook for Trump.

After the Trump administration ended, Nauta was brought to work for Trump personally at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida. Nauta has already spoken to prosecutors multiple times, but the government has expressed skepticism about those interviews with suspicions that he may have intentionally misled investigators.

Sources told the Times that prosecutors are interested in learning more about what Nauta knows about the movement of the documents.

The government is also pressuring Trump aide Kash Patel to testify before the grand jury. Patel served as one of the top communicators between Trump and the National Archives. Prosecutors seek to glean from Patel information on how Trump and his legal team responded to government requests to turn over the documents and how the documents got to Mar-a-Lago in the first place.

It remains unclear exactly what the government believes will come from the testimonies, but it does indicate they have arrived at another level of the probe. How they move forward will be significant in showing how they go about getting information from witnesses. It could be by charging them, granting immunity in return for testimony or agreeing to terms of cooperation, according to sources.

The Justice Department began investigating Trump’s documents after the National Archives located 15 missing boxes at Mar-a-Lago at the beginning of the year. That led to the FBI’s August search of Trump’s residence which turned up nearly 200 documents labeled as classified or top secret.

Trump maintains that he declassified the documents before moving them to Florida and the probe is just a continuation of the “witch hunt” against him.