Prosecutors allege that a relative addressed only as ‘ma’am’ had a text conversation with one of the former president’s aides about what to do with piles of government documents
www.independent.co.uk
ABC News reported that the woman was likely to be Mr Trump's wife Melania, citing inside sources.
Prosecutors claim that Mr Trump schemed to keep hold of some documents in defiance of a legal order to give them back, while storing them insecurely at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida while tens of thousands of guests came and went.
Mr Trump contends that he is "an innocent man" and that the charges are "a hoax" contrived by his political enemies.
According to the indictment, Mr Trump's family member became involved on 30 May 2022, just day before a lawyer was due to search his storage room for classified documents demanded by the government.
Before that happened, Mr Trump allegedly asked Mr Nauta to remove 64 boxes from their storage room and bring them to his private residence, meaning they would not be present for the lawyer to search.
That day, the family member allegedly texted Mr Nauta: "Good afternoon, Walt. Happy Memorial Day! I saw you put boxes to POTUS' room.
"Just FYI, and I will tell him as well: not sure how many he wants to take on Friday on the plane. We will NOT have room for them. Plane will be full with luggage. Thank you!"
Mr Nauta replied with a smiley face emoji, saying: "Good afternoon ma'am. Thank you so much. I think he wanted to pick from them. I don't imagine him wanting to take the boxes.
"He told me to put them in the room and that he was going to talk to you about them."