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A female member of Donald Trump's family was involved in decisions over how to handle classified US government documents that he took from the White House, prosecutors have said.
In a historic indictment unsealed on Friday, authorities alleged that an unnamed family member gave instructions to Mr Trump's aide Walt Nauta as he was preparing to squirrel away documents that the former president did not wish to give back.
The accusation widens the circle of people who may have had unauthorised influence over sensitive information about US nuclear weapons, military plans, foreign relations, and more.
Yet the identity of the family member remains a mystery, with the only clue being that Mr Nauta allegedly addressed her as "ma'am".
ABC News reported that the woman was likely to be Mr Trump's wife Melania, citing inside sources. Melania Trump's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mr Trump is facing 37 criminal charges including willfully retaining national defence information, conspiracy to obstruct justice, concealing a document in a federal investigation, and false statements and representations.
Prosecutors claim that Mr Trump schemed to keep hold of some documents in defiance of a legal order to give them back, while storing them insecurely at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida while tens of thousands of guests came and went.
Mr Trump contends that he is "an innocent man" and that the charges are "a hoax" contrived by his political enemies.
According to the indictment, Mr Trump's family member became involved on 30 May 2022, just day before a lawyer was due to search his storage room for classified documents demanded by the government.
Before that happened, Mr Trump allegedly asked Mr Nauta to remove 64 boxes from their storage room and bring them to his private residence, meaning they would not be present for the lawyer to search.
That day, the family member allegedly texted Mr Nauta: "Good afternoon, Walt. Happy Memorial Day! I saw you put boxes to POTUS' room.
"Just FYI, and I will tell him as well: not sure how many he wants to take on Friday on the plane. We will NOT have room for them. Plane will be full with luggage. Thank you!"
Mr Nauta replied with a smiley face emoji, saying: "Good afternoon ma'am. Thank you so much. I think he wanted to pick from them. I don't imagine him wanting to take the boxes.
"He told me to put them in the room and that he was going to talk to you about them."
The indictment says nothing more about who this family member might have been, how much she knew about the documents, and what her intentions were in texting Mr Nauta.
The most prominent women in Mr Trump's immediate family are his wife Melania, his daughter from his first marriage Ivanka, 41, and his daughter from his second marriage Tiffany, 29.
The indictment does not suggest that any of them had knowledge of any illegal behaviour.
areherenow on June 9th, 2023 at 22:34 UTC »
Remind me of the timing of traveling with secret documents in 20 boxes to go to his NJ golf course and when was that Saudi sponsored golf game at his property? Yeah then there's that Jared payoff? 🤔💸💲
_PadfootAndProngs_ on June 9th, 2023 at 21:56 UTC »
This is actually part of an extremely interesting piece that was left out of this indictment (regarding the boxes at Bedminster). Let me explain:
In the “Defendants’ Concealment of Boxes” section starting on page 21, it explains the movement of every box at Mar-a-Lago.
Specifically, on page 24 of the indictment, it says:
Then, on page 26, it says:
THUS, on the day that Trump’s lawyer searched the MAL storage room for docs, Trump directed Nauta to move 64 boxes from MAL to Trump’s house prior to the search later in the day. Then, a couple hours later, after supposedly “picking through them”, Trump directs Nauta to move only 30 boxes BACK to MAL, again prior to the search later in the day. He chose which boxes to willingly allow his Attorney to find. Perhaps a nuclear document wasn’t the worst he had?
Then, the next day, after the 3rd lawyer had falsely certified that they found EVERYTHING (they didn’t) and handed the documents over to 2 employees from the DOJ and FBI, respectively, Trump and Nauta moved those extra 34 boxes on to Trump’s private plane with which he took to Bedminster, NJ.
Crucially, this indictment says nothing of what happened to these boxes after! The indictment ends there and moves to the charges!
There has to be more to this case; no chance the DOJ just forgot about those boxes at Bedminster.
This leads me to believe that this is only the first indictment. Let us not forget that the main focus of this investigation has been centered around the D.C. grand jury. That grand jury has met for 2 years. There absolutely has to be an indictment coming from them as well. Perhaps that will cover even more serious crimes? Perhaps there’s been a secret grand jury in Bedminster?
Idk but I’m here for the ride and I’m loving it
Edit: Another thing of note that I find interesting is the indictment’s use of “several” in “NAUTA and others loaded several of TRUMP’S boxes…”
We know there were at least 34 boxes that Trump withheld, so is this to imply that they cannot state for sure that all 34 boxes were loaded on the plane to Bedminster?
In the indictment, we are told that the FBI raid found 100+ classified docs, so perhaps the “female Trump family member” was correct in saying there wasn’t enough room for all of them? Perhaps Trump only took the most important several boxes of the 34 and left the rest at MAL not knowing the FBI would produce a search warrant
GrimlockHolmes on June 9th, 2023 at 21:39 UTC »
Maybe DOJ is already planning on searching all of his properties after reading this part:
"Just FYI, and I will tell him as well: not sure how many he wants to take on Friday on the plane. We will NOT have room for them. Plane will be full with luggage. Thank you!"
Mr Nauta replied with a smiley face emoji, saying: "Good afternoon ma'am. Thank you so much. I think he wanted to pick from them. I don't imagine him wanting to take the boxes.”