Special counsel Jack Smith's prosecution team believes that Donald Trump's valet and Mar-a-Lago documents co-defendant, Walt Nauta, has two photos of classified documents in his phone, according to a Monday Newsweek report.
This comes just two weeks after CNN reported Nauta "was told that if he was charged with lying to the FBI, the former president would pardon him when he won a second term in 2024, according to notes from an interview with a witness in the federal classified documents investigation."
Nauta was charged with — and plead not guilty to — allegedly helping Trump with obstructing the Department of Justice's investigation into the ex-president's mishandling of classified documents.
Per Newsweek, Smith's team seeks to "convince Judge Aileen Cannon that Nauta has had months to find an expert witness to refute the government's claim about the classified images on his phone," considering the fact their "filing states that prosecutors informed Nauta's lawyer months ago about the two photos."
In their latest filing, the news outlet reports prosecutors insist "Nauta has everything he needs to identify an expert, and has had it for several months."
"Since one of the phones contained two unique images with classification markings, the Government provided those images separately to defense counsel via classified discovery in October 2023, along with the related forensic report containing metadata relating to those two images," the filing says.
Smith's team suspects the Trump ally's insistence on having no knowledge of the images is part of his — and Trump's — ploy to delay trial until after the election.
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If the prosecution's claim that Nauta "allegedly shared one of the images via text message," Newsweek reports the jury could possibly be convinced "that Trump did not secure classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, and that staff had access to them."
Newsweek's full report is available at this link.
