The newly unsealed evidence that the Justice Department used to obtain a search warrant for former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence paints an "overwhelming" case against Trump and his close aide Walt Nauta, former U.S. attorney Joyce Vance told MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Thursday. Vance said that Nauta, who pleaded not guilty to six federal charges during his arraignment in a Miami federal court Thursday, and his new Florida lawyer, Sasha Dadan, have a lot of work ahead of them.
"There will be an enormous amount of pressure on Walt Nauta to cooperate with the government. If he does not, it's almost a certainty he will go to prison for years, he is part of the obstruction of justice in this case and those penalties are very significant," Vance told the host. She explained that, while the information indicated by the newly unsealed affidavit has already been presented in the indictment, it also confirms that the evidence prosecutors collected is "thorough, it is detailed, it is overwhelming" because of the nature of the physical evidence it unveils. The unredacted portions of the affidavit show dozens of boxes in the Mar-a-Lago resort club's storage room and descriptions of surveillance footage, including a video showing Nauta moving boxes days before prosecutors came to receive any remaining documents Trump had last year. According to the document, Nauta removed about 64 boxes from the storage room but only returned around 25 to 30 of them. "That means Walter Nauta and Donald Trump tried to conceal them from the government," Vance elaborated in the interview. "This new evidence only adds to the pressure that will mount on Walt Nauta at some point in these proceedings."
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