Bombshell interview sees Trump witness reveal he loaded boxes of documents onto plane
Brian Butler, an employee at Mar-a-Lago serving as a witness in the classified documents case against former President Donald Trump, told his side of the story to CNN's Kaitlan Collins in an interview released on Monday.
Butler, identified in court records only as "Trump Employee 5," said he was asked by the former president's body man Walt Nauta, also charged in the indictment from special counsel Jack Smith, to help him load boxes onto Trump's plane.
"They were the boxes that were in the indictment, the white banker's boxes," Butler told Collins. "That's what I remember loading."
Butler told Collins this after explaining the journey from Mar-a-Lago that included a motorcade and a text message alerting Trump's valet that he on his way.
"He followed me, he pulled out and got behind me," Butler said. "I ended up loading all the luggage I had, and he had a bunch of boxes."
Collins demanded to know if Butler understood that there might be U.S. national security secrets in the boxes he was told to handle.
"No, I had no clue," Butler said. "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?" asked Collins.
ALSO READ: ‘Mean girl on a revenge tour’: Kevin McCarthy has knives out for his ‘Gaetz 8’ tormentors
"They asked me in the interview, and I believe it was — I tend to 15, is what I remember," said Butler.
Butler didn't realize until later that the boxes would end up at the heart of special counsel Jack Smith's Florida federal court case, in which Trump has pleaded not guilty to charges that include conspiracy to obstruct justice and corruptly concealing a document or record, he said.
"There were a few different things that happened that kind of opened my eyes to, you know, something's going on here," Butler said.
"So you get that unusual request," Collins said. "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 said. "I never would've thought it was anything like what we see."
Watch the video below or at the link here.
Mar-a-Lago employee speaks out in Trump documents case www.youtube.com