Trump’s valet ‘thought ex-president was hoarding hairspray’ in boxes that contained secret papers

Donald Trump’s valet said he mistook boxes containing secret documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate for boxes of hairspray, according to a transcript of an FBI interview.

According to the May 2022 interview transcript, the former president’s valet Walt Nauta repeatedly insisted that he thought the boxes of classified documents on Mr Trump’s property contained news clippings, hairspray, shampoo, picture frames and other miscellaneous materials.

The documents are now at the centre of one of four criminal cases against Mr Trump, while Mr Nauta has been charged with conspiring to conceal documents as well as lying to the FBI in his interview about the location and movement of boxes of documents at Mar-a-Lago. He has pleaded not guilty.

The transcript shows that during the interview, Mr Nauta was asked by investigators whether he was aware of Mr Trump showing a document with classified markings to people while on a plane. No such event was alleged in the indictment against Mr Trump.

Mr Nauta told investigators that he was not aware of nor had he heard of any such incident, and noted that he normally sat at the back of the plane when travelling with the former president.

During the interview, FBI agents also laid out for Mr Nauta, who served in the military, why they were interested in the whereabouts of any sensitive government documents, adding that they were trying to figure out if classified documents were “at least kept in a somewhat controlled environment” or “could they have been exposed to a foreign intelligence service.”

They stressed that if certain information may have been compromised then they would need to inform intelligence agencies who could determine whether to shut down certain operations.

“Like it’s not worth