‘This Type of Witness Is Gold’: Elie Honig Marvels at Ex-Trump Employee Recalling How He Moved Boxes of Government Documents
CNN Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig said federal prosecutors in Donald Trump’s documents trial have themselves some “gold” in the form of “Trump Employee 5,” as he is referred to in the indictment.
Brian Butler, who worked at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida for 20 years, told investigators (and now CNN) that in June 2022, he unknowingly helped move 10 to 15 boxes of government documents from Mar-a-Lago to Trump’s plane, which was bound for New Jersey. That was the same month an attorney for Trump gave the Department of Justice a letter stating that to the best of her acknowledge, Trump had no government material in his possession.
Butler told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Monday that at the time he suspected, “Something’s going on here.”
Trump is under federal indictment for what Special Counsel Jack Smith said was the ex-president’s willful retention of classified documents and his obstruction of the government’s efforts to retrieve them. The former president has pleaded not guilty.
On Monday’s edition of The Lead, Honig told Jake Tapper that Butler’s account is a boon to prosecutors:
So, this type of witness is gold for prosecutors and there’s a few reasons for that. First of all, this person has insider access. He’s literally inside the room… He’s there when boxes are being loaded onto the plane. And one of the challenges for prosecutors here is explaining exactly where these documents were moved, and when, and by whom. And this person can give us exactly why.
Second of all, he’s a person who appears to be unbiased. He doesn’t seem to have any reason to have an axe to grind with Donald Trump… He’s a longtime two decades-long employee of Donald Trump and the Trump Organization. Just based on the snippet that we just saw, he does not appear to be angry or resentful towards Donald Trump.
And finally, if you look at his testimony and you look at the indictment, he appears to be well-supported, corroborated by documents, by certain text chains that are referenced in the indictment, and by testimony of some of the defendants themselves, Walt Nauta and Carlos de Oliviera. So this is really the kind of witness that you want to build around as a prosecutor.
Trump is under indictment in four jurisdictions. His lawyers argue that as president, the ex-president is immune from prosecution. Next month, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on the immunity question.
Watch above via CNN.
