Unmasked: Ex-Trump Valet-Turned-Feds’ Informant Says 'Anybody’ Could Access Areas of Mar-a-Lago Where Government Documents Were Kept
Former Mar-a-Lago staffer Brian Butler spoke out about his former boss in a new interview on the classified docs case.
March 12 2024, Updated 9:10 a.m. ET
A longtime Mar-a-Lago staffer detailed how he unwittingly helped a personal aide to Donald Trump deliver boxes of classified information to the former president's plane in June 2022, RadarOnline.com has learned.
"[Walt Nauta] left the club. I didn't know what he had in his vehicle," Brian Butler — AKA "Trump Employee 5" mentioned six times in the indictment brought by special counsel Jack Smith — said in a new interview.
The ex-staffer noted that Trump's aide, Nauta, waited for him at a nearby business until he left Mar-a-Lago.
Butler recalled the strange request from Nauta, who wanted to know if he could borrow an Escalade from the car service Butler ran for Mar-a-Lago.
It was an unusual request from Nauta, Butler reasoned, because he didn't usually handle moving luggage and did not offer too much information.
"I ended up loading all the luggage I had and he had a bunch of boxes," Butler told CNN's primetime star Kaitlan Collins. He noted they were the same boxes included in the indictment.
Butler detailed how he unwittingly helped a personal aide to Trump deliver boxes of classified information to the former president's plane in June 2022.
Collins asked if he knew there were potentially national secrets inside, to which he replied, "Nope. I had no clue. We were just taking them out of the Escalade piling them up ... I remember they were all stacked on top of each other and then we were lifting them up to the pilot."
Nauta, for his alleged role, previously entered a not guilty plea in federal court in Miami after being accused of conspiring to obstruct the government's efforts to retrieve highly sensitive material.
Butler remembered there being between 10-15 boxes when they got to the airport, noting he shared the same number with investigators.
Collins asked if Butler knew there were potentially national secrets inside, to which he replied, "Nope. I had no clue."
Later on, there were "a few different things that happened that kind of opened my eyes to something is going on here," the Mar-a-Lago staffer, now a central witness in the investigation, said.
Butler left his job as a club valet and manager three months after the FBI removed several records from Mar-a-Lago in August 2022.
In hindsight, he said the ordeal has also weighed on him heavily as he has to answer questions about Trump's co-defendant Carlos De Oliveira, who he referred to as one of his best friends.
Butler left his job as a club valet and manager three months after the FBI removed several records from Mar-a-Lago in August 2022.
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"For him (Trump) to get up there all the time and say the things he says about this being a witch hunt and everything. … He just can't take responsibility for anything," Butler said.
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As we previously reported, De Oliveira and Trump have also denied wrongdoing.
An attorney for De Oliveira, John Irving, told the outlet, "We look forward to hearing more about Mr. Butler's version of events when he is under oath and subject to penalty of perjury in the courtroom where that belongs, and we decline to try this case in the media."
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