Things have gotten a whole lot worse for Donald Trump this week in the sprawling and infamous stolen Mar-a-Lago classified documents case, as a bombshell witness, who also happens to be an employee of the former president’s Florida compound, came forward and told prosecutors about his role in Trump’s scheme to hide those documents from investigators — a development that CNN legal expert and former federal prosecutor Elie Honig said is “gold for prosecutors.”
This week, the bombshell new documents witness was revealed to be Brian Butler, an employee of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago golf resort and post-White House personal residence. On Monday, Butler personally spoke with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, following his interview with investigators with Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office, and opened up about how he personally helped load boxes onto the former president’s plane with the help of Donald’s bodyman and co-defendant Walt Nauta, many of which were loaded down with classified stolen government materials.
Butler was originally identified only as “Trump Employee 5” in court records. However, he has now gone public with his side of the story, telling CNN’s Collins that he was personally asked by Donald Trump’s body man Walt Nauta. who is now a co-defendant alongside the former president in this case, to help load boxes onto a plane belonging to ex-President Trump.
“They were the boxes that were in the indictment, the white banker’s boxes,” Butler told Collins. “That’s what I remember loading.”
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Butler explained that this loading incident was preceded by traveling from Mar-a-Lago with a motorcade and a text message sent to Trump’s valet, notifying him that he was on his way.
“He followed me, he pulled out and got behind me,” Butler said in the bombshell CNN interview. “I ended up loading all the luggage I had, and he had a bunch of boxes.”
Collins asked the million-dollar question when she all but demanded to know if Butler was aware of the fact that these boxes contained some of the nation’s most sensitive, highly classified documents and intel when he was loading them onto Donald Trump’s plane.
“No, I had no clue,” Butler answered. “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’re lifting them up to the pilots.”
“How many boxes was it?” Collins pressed.
“They asked me in the interview, and I believe it was — I tend to 15, is what I remember,” the Mar-a-Lago employee turned key witness responded.
Butler says that he didn’t realize until much later that the boxes he loaded up on that plane were ultimately the epicenter of DOJ Special Counsel Jack Smith’s sprawling federal, criminal investigation into the ex-President of the United States.
“There were a few different things that happened that kind of opened my eyes to, you know, something’s going on here,” he explained.
“So you get that unusual request,” Collins said, asking, “Did you ever think to yourself, why were there so many boxes at Mar-a-Lago?”
“For me, I’m just thinking, oh, the former president has a lot of stuff he likes to lug around with him,” he answered. “I never would’ve thought it was anything like what we see.”
Watch the bombshell CNN interview here:
Featured image via Political Tribune Gallery
