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CNN
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A new look at Donald Trump’s inner circle shows how the former president’s men and women often face fateful dilemmas under great personal pressure.
Do they have a loyalty to rule-breaking bosses, or an obligation to the rule of law and traditional views of the national interest?
The latest person to learn this lesson from Trump over the years is Brian, who has been dubbed “Trump Employee 5” in a criminal case involving classified documents the former commander-in-chief kept at his Florida resort after leaving office. It’s Butler. Butler came forward in an exclusive interview with CNN on Monday, identifying himself as a key witness in the case and loading boxes of classified documents onto President Trump’s plane in West Palm Beach ahead of a summer trip to New Jersey. He said that he unknowingly helped him. Around the same time, the FBI was scheduled to retrieve them in Florida.
Butler said a co-worker told him everything about the box was “dirty,” which was later included in the federal indictment against Trump, who has pleaded not guilty to multiple charges and is now considered a potential Republican candidate. He said he realized that he had been exposed.
“I had no idea,” Butler told CNN’s Caitlan Collins. “I had no idea it was the exact same thing we’re seeing now,” he said of the box.
Butler’s comments are important because they foreshadow how he will testify in the federal secrets trial, which could cause significant damage to President Trump, but it may not be possible before the U.S. referendum vote in the fall. That’s becoming less and less likely. His lessons about life in the former president’s shadow form the basis of a series of new warnings about Mr. Trump’s behavior and his fitness to serve a second term. And his revelations mark a shocking and cavalier attitude toward classified information from a man who could take control of the intelligence community and return to the top of the U.S. government within 11 months with access to the nation’s most important secrets. It seems to indicate that it is showing.
Butler, who has not been charged, depicts an inner world in which his loyalty to his boss was taken for granted by other longtime colleagues, and he unwittingly slipped into a potential legal gray area. There is. Like countless other former Trump associates, he faced intense pressure to defer to his boss, including offering legal representation.
A former Mar-a-Lago valet and club manager says the fallout from Trump’s separation from indicted Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De・He also explained how his close friendship with Oliveira ended. He is thrown into a social and political wilderness.
Butler’s portrayal of life inside the Trump bubble is familiar to Stephanie Grisham, a longtime Trump insider who worked on the 2016 campaign and in various positions in the White House. , eventually serving as press secretary. Like Butler and countless other former aides, Grisham reached a moment when he was no longer able to make the personal twists necessary to remain loyal to Trump.
“The psychology of the crowd really touched me,” Grisham told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Monday. “He called him (Trump) the boss, and we all called him that. There was a test of loyalty, and this also happened to all of us.”
Butler is not the only colleague of President Trump to find himself in legal limbo. A long list of former followers dating back to the 2016 campaign have been tried or prosecuted. Former White House trade official Peter Navarro, one of Trump’s top aides who did not break with him, is scheduled to go to prison by next week after being found guilty by a jury of defying a congressional subpoena.
Hundreds of Trump supporters have also been convicted and are serving prison sentences for their role in the mob attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Others, including a former New York mayor, are awaiting trial on charges of trying to help Trump steal the 2020 election. Rudolph Giuliani is facing financial ruin as he struggles to pay his legal fees. But so far, the former president has avoided legal responsibility for the events surrounding the 2020 election, while his lawyers are trying to kill any chance of delay to keep him from going to trial until after the 2024 election. .
Butler said he is speaking out now because he wants voters to know the truth about potential Republican candidates before the November election. “For him (Trump) to always stand there and say things like this is a witch hunt and everything else. … He can’t be held accountable for anything,” Butler told CNN. told Mr. Collins.
As President Trump approaches the White House, there are concerns about the impact of his possible return to the Oval Office, as he is likely to breach the delegate threshold needed to win the Republican nomination on Tuesday night. It’s increasing.
For example, CNN’s Jim Schutt quotes several former senior officials in a new book warning that the former commander-in-chief is unfit to protect America’s interests. People like former chief of staff John Kelly and former national security adviser John Bolton have criticized President Trump’s admiration for the world’s most brutal dictators and aspects of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi rule. It even provides eye-opening details about the former president’s praises.
It is too early to tell whether Mr. Butler’s testimony will be decisive in a federal trial in the classified documents case. The full details of his time at Mar-a-Lago are also unknown to the public. However, the former president’s lawyers will certainly try to discredit him during cross-examination.
President Trump has pleaded not guilty to multiple charges in the case, including charges of preserving national defense information and concealing documents in violation of the Witness Tampering Act. Former President Trump’s personal aides, Walt Nauta and De Oliveira, have also denied wrongdoing.
Trump’s lawyer declined to comment to CNN, as did Nauta’s lawyer. “I look forward to hearing more about what happened when Mr. Butler was under oath and is subject to perjury in court,” John Irving, Mr. de Oliveira’s lawyer, said in a statement. “We reject this,” the statement said. Try this incident in the media. ”
Legal experts took into account that Butler had worked with Trump for many years, first went to Mar-a-Lago in 2002, and that he had no apparent grievances with his former employer. He said he could be a powerful witness for Special Counsel Jack Smith. .
“He could be the ultimate insider,” said Andrew McCabe, a former FBI deputy director and current CNN law enforcement analyst. Ryan Goodman, a professor at New York University School of Law, told Barnett that Butler could be a strong witness against Smith because he was a “first-hand witness and participated in much of the activity that was indicted.” Told.
Butler is following in the footsteps of many Trump-world mavericks. Among them is the former president’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen, who was jailed for campaign finance and tax crimes after betraying his former clients. Mr. Cohen will be a key witness when Mr. Trump becomes the first former president to stand trial over the hush money case in New York later this month. The fact that Mr. Cohen has already been convicted of lying to Congress is certain to be used by the former president’s lawyers to poke holes in his testimony.
Butler’s epiphany mirrors the personal journey of Cassidy Hutchinson, former White House chief of staff to Mark Meadows. She witnessed attempts to overturn the will of voters in 2020, and she was determined to warn the American people about the former president’s actions. Hutchinson gave shocking testimony before the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. But she has also experienced slander about her character and motives from the former president’s circle and conservative media as a result of her attacks on President Trump. Fresh efforts to discredit Cassidy will accelerate this week as House Republicans step up their January 6 committee investigation.
In an interview with CBS last year, Hutchinson opened up about her dilemma over whether to reveal what she learned about Trump’s world. “I felt torn apart many times because I knew what I knew and wanted to come forward with what I knew,” Hutchinson said. “But at the same time, I didn’t want to feel like I was letting them down.”
The constant legal, political and personal drama surrounding Mr. Trump, which contributed to his defeat in 2020, has become more pronounced as his return to the White House approaches. But his meteoric rise toward the Republican nomination has already proven that revelations like Mr. Butler’s will not undermine his grip on the party. Additionally, the careless handling of classified documents kept in the bathroom of his home was unusual for a former commander-in-chief and may have damaged national security, but the incident has permeated public consciousness. However, there is little sign that national consciousness is actually weakening. President Trump in November. At least not yet.
That’s partly because Republicans are trying to draw parallels between the case and that of classified materials found in President Joe Biden’s former office and home. But another special counsel, Robert Hur, a former district attorney appointed by President Trump, made it clear in his final report that the cases were not comparable. Ho, who is scheduled to testify at the Capitol on Tuesday, said that while Biden’s lawyers found and returned the documents, Trump allegedly tried to obstruct the investigation, an act that Butler’s testimony revealed. I wrote that it could happen.
Butler’s insight into the Trump administration’s life behind closed doors also explains why the former president’s lawyers want to delay the trial until voters make their choice in November. And we can see what happens if the most destructive and rebellious president ever gets re-elected.
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