Walt Nauta, who worked for Donald Trump, has pleaded not guilty to charges that he hid secret papers for his boss at Mar-a-Lago, the home of the former president.
The navy veteran, who was charged at the same time as Mr. Trump, faces six charges, including conspiracy and making false claims.
During his first court appearance last month, the former president said he was not guilty.
It’s not clear when the trial of Mr. Trump and Mr. Nauta will start.
Prosecutors say that Mr. Nauta, who is 40 years old, helped the former president move boxes with top-secret government papers at Mar-a-Lago and then helped hide the boxes from federal officials who wanted them back.
His hearing was supposed to happen at the same time as Mr. Trump’s, but it was moved because Mr. Nauta had not yet found a lawyer in Florida.
He is now being defended by Sasha Dadan, a criminal defense lawyer.
Reuters says that when Mr. Nauta went to court in Miami, Florida for the hearing, he smiled at the media but did not say anything.
US media say that Stanley Woodward, who had defended Mr. Nauta at other hearings, entered the plea and waived the reading of the indictment on Thursday on his client’s behalf.
In the Mar-a-Lago case, Mr. Trump is being charged with 37 counts, such as willful keeping of national defense information and obstructing justice.
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In June, prosecutors released a 49-page indictment in which they say that Mr. Trump illegally kept files with secret information and made it hard for the federal government to get them back.
The indictment says that Mr. Trump told Mr. Nauta to move boxes from a storage room at the Mar-a-Lago club that were part of the investigation. Prosecutors said that he can be seen moving the boxes on surveillance video.
Mr. Nauta, who worked for Mr. Trump as a military valet in the White House and later as a helper at his Florida estate, was reportedly told to hide the files from Mr. Trump’s lawyer and the FBI.
The next day, a federal judge released parts of the affidavit that the FBI used to get a search order for Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Mr. Nauta will be arraigned the day after that.
A lot of the warrant is still redacted, but newly unsealed parts of the document show the huge amount of evidence federal investigators got before they carried out the search warrant last August. For example, surveillance video seems to show Mr. Nauta moving boxes before investigators came to look for them.
The federal judge said that other parts of the search order will be kept secret to “comply with grand jury secrecy rules and to protect investigative sources and methods.”
Mr. Trump, who is the most likely Republican candidate for president in 2024, is the first past president to be charged on both federal and state levels.
He is being sued in a different case in New York because he paid back hush money he gave to a porn star.
