"Trump Employee 5" details Trump's mob-like management style
Brian Butler dishes to CNN and reminds us why his former boss should be nowhere near the presidency.
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CNN dropped an interview on Monday night that, in normal times, would spell a death knell for a presidential bid: a former employee explaining how he inadvertently helped his boss, the presumptive GOP nominee, hide purloined classified documents.
But the presumptive GOP nominee in this case is Donald Trump — aka “Teflon Don” — so the fact that yet another person got ensnared in one of his numerous criminal schemes will likely make no difference to those who still back him.
The tale of Brian Butler, who worked at Mar-a-Lago as a seasonal valet for 20 years, is the latest example of someone in Trumpworld being the victim of top-down pressure to assist Trump in a criminal enterprise. As his former fixer Michael Cohen, who ended up going to prison for Trump, once explained, the former president “behaves like a mob boss” and “giv[es] an order without giving the order. No fingerprints attached.”
(Watch Butler’s full CNN interview below.)
Butler isn’t mentioned by name in Special Prosecutor Jack Smith’s 40-count criminal indictment against Trump and two former employees, body man Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira. After Monday’s CNN interview, though, the world now knows that Butler is “Trump Employee 5” in that indictment. There, Employee 5 makes only two appearances.
First, on June 25, 2022, De Oliveira told Butler that Nauta was coming down to Florida from Bedminster and that Nauta wanted De Oliveira to find out for how long surveillance camera footage at Mar-a-Lago is stored. Next, on August 26, 2022, Nauta called Butler to say that “someone just wants to make sure Carlos is good.” Butler apparently understood what that vague, no-fingerprints-attached statement meant and let Nauta know that De Oliveira was loyal and would not do anything to affect his relationship with Trump. Nauta later had Butler confirm De Oliveira’s loyalty to Trump again in a Signal chat group that also included an unnamed PAC representative, later identified as Trump aide Susie Wiles, to whom Trump had shown classified documents in 2021.
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Butler’s interview with CNN gives greater context and depth to Nauta’s odd demand that the valet vouch for De Oliveira’s loyalty to Trump. Butler was actually at a birthday party with De Oliveira, then one of his closest friends, when Nauta called him to make sure that De Oliveira had sufficient allegiance to Trump. After Butler assured Nauta of De Oliveira’s loyalty, Nauta added Butler to the Signal group and asked Butler to repeat what he had said. Butler gushed that De Oliveira was “very loyal,” that “he loves what he does” and “you don’t have to worry about Carlos.”
CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked Butler if he thought this was odd, and Butler agreed that it was, but added that De Oliveira was one of his best friends and “I don’t wanna see him get hurt, or I want them to know that they can trust him.” Butler was still out with De Oliveira when, less than 30 minutes later, Trump called and told him he would be getting De Oliveira a lawyer.
The CNN interview also surfaced that Nauta had roped in an unwitting Butler several weeks earlier, on June 3, 2022. The night before that, the indictment explains, a Trump attorney contacted the Department of Justice and asked that an FBI agent come to Mar-a-Lago on June 3 so that the attorney could turn over what was supposed to be all the classified documents in Trump’s possession, in response to a May 11 subpoena. On June 3, two Trump attorneys turned over a folder with classified documents and an attestation saying those were all the documents responsive to the subpoena. Trump even showed up at the meeting and told the DOJ and the FBI he was “an open book.” He wasn’t, of course, with the indictment noting that he’d engineered getting rid of several boxes earlier that day, with Nauta and De Oliveira, among others, loading those boxes on the plane taking Trump and family to Bedminster for the summer.
Butler was one of those unwitting others. He told CNN that on June 3, Nauta asked him to borrow an Escalade from Mar-a-Lago’s car service, which Butler ran. It was an odd request, Butler explained, because Nauta wasn’t an employee who usually handled moving luggage. Nauta and De Oliveira loaded up the Escalade and took it to the airport while Butler took his own vehicle — the one actually carrying Trump family luggage — there as well. Then Butler helped Nauta and De Oliveira empty the Escalade of several white bankers’ boxes and loaded them on the plane. Butler told CNN that at the time, he didn’t think the boxes contained anything unusual and only later realized those were the boxes mentioned in the indictment.
The former valet told CNN he has been cooperating with Smith’s team since FBI agents showed up at his house in March 2023. Butler learned about this when he was out taking a walk with De Oliveira, a close friend who lived only a few hundred feet away. De Oliveira advised Butler to retain a lawyer paid for by Trump, but Butler got his own, perhaps not wanting to tie his legal future to Trump.
When it comes to attorneys, De Oliveira and Nauta have shown themselves very willing to keep their fortunes tied to Trump. In August 2023, De Oliveira even filed a motion opposing the government’s concern that his lead attorney, John Irving, also represented three other Mar-a-Lago employees. Prosecutors raised the same concern about Nauta’s attorney, Stanley Woodward, who had also represented other witnesses who might be called at trial.
Having one attorney represent multiple people can create ethical conflicts. For example, Woodward initially represented both Nauta and a former Mar-a-Lago IT specialist referred to as Trump Employee 4 in the indictment. The IT specialist told a DC grand jury in March 2023 that he knew nothing of Nauta and De Oliveira’s attempt to delete security footage from the club. The IT specialist was later informed he was being investigated for perjury. The conflict of interest from the dual representation arises, explained prosecutors, because if Woodward told the IT specialist to correct his sworn testimony, that would necessarily implicate Nauta, whom Woodward also represented. If Woodward told the IT specialist to do nothing to protect Nauta, he would be left the IT specialist exposed to criminal perjury charges.
Irving told the court that he had previously represented three other Mar-a-Lago employees but that new counsel was “being made available to advise them going forward.” The court appointed a federal public defender for Employee 4, who then told the court he did not want to be represented by Woodward. He then retracted his earlier grand jury testimony and provided information implicating Trump, Nauta, and De Oliveira. Had Butler agreed to an attorney provided by Trump, he may have become involved in this complicated web of ethical issues. Any attorney tied to Trump and paid for by Trump ultimately has Trump’s interests at heart, not those of any co-defendants or other witnesses.
None of this is normal
This is the trap of the sort of mob-style loyalty demanded by Trump.
In late May 2022, when Trump had clearly decided he was not going to turn over all the classified documents in his possession, he enlisted Nauta to move dozens of boxes around so that when Trump Attorney 1 arrived to review documents on June 2, only 30 boxes, rather than 64, remained in the storage room. Nauta got De Oliveira to help, and De Oliveira, in turn, involved an oblivious Butler in the relocation scheme.
Thanks to this, Trump Attorney 1, unnamed in the indictment but later determined to be Evan Corcoran, did not know he failed to review all of the boxes in Trump’s possession and therefore did not provide the FBI with a complete set of documents responsive to the DOJ subpoena. Corcoran then got Trump Attorney 3, later revealed to be Christina Bobb, to sign a certification as the custodian of records and to say that she was personally aware of a “diligent search” of all boxes and that “any and all responsive documents” were provided.
All of these people were compromised by Trump’s belief that laws do not apply to him. The point isn’t whether any of these individuals are good or bad. No one should shed any tears for Christina Bobb, such a staunch proponent of the big lie that she wrote a book about it with Steve Bannon in 2023, or Walt Nauta, who was accused of sexual misconduct and revenge porn by multiple servicemembers while he was still in the Navy. Indeed, even Butler, who comes out looking best here, is still someone who thought well enough of Trump to work for him until late 2022, nearly two years after the insurrection. However, no one but Trump benefits from all the complicated efforts to hide his theft of classified documents. Everyone else takes risks, but only Trump gets rewards.
It’s somewhat cliche to refer to Trump as a mob boss or to his businesses as mafia-esque, but just because it is cliched doesn’t make it incorrect. As Henry Farrell, a professor of international affairs at Johns Hopkins who has written at length about the concept of trust in the Sicilian Mafia, explained, Trump, like actual mob bosses, prefers ambiguous language: “He has made a very successful career out of speaking in code, and ruthlessly throwing subordinates under the bus when they do what he wants them to do but then get caught.”
Butler did the right thing by breaking this code of silence and talking to the DOJ. Talking to the press is a bit more fraught, as typically someone who would be a significant witness at the criminal trial would likely not speak publicly before then. At this time, though, it looks increasingly unlikely that Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, will schedule the case for trial before the election, so this was really the only way Butler could get the word out.
Butler’s revelations to CNN highlight how weird life is for those who work for Trump. Normal jobs do not require employees to look the other way when the boss commits crimes. Normal businesses do not put their employees at risk of prison by entangling them in unlawful schemes. And normal bosses definitely don’t ask their employees for loyalty oaths, with the only meager reward for that loyalty being an attorney in the inevitable criminal case. But nothing is normal with Trump.
That’s it for today
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Brian Butler's (Trump's 5th Employee) point of view is relevant and should be absorbed by all U.S. voters. While he is not telling us anything new about Trump, he is reaffirming the character of this man who is convicted of being a liar, a fraud, a sexual predator/rapist, and is currently facing 91 criminal charges - not one or two, but 91 charges of breaking the law. The laws in the United States are the underlying fortress that guides our society and country. Laws provide us a fair and independent process - to ensure that justice prevails and everyone is treated equally and farily.
I spent the majority of my career living and working in communist and dictator-led countries. These countries have ONE law which says "lay-low and do not anger the leader" or you end up in prison or dead. I barely escaped Turkmenistan one day before I was to be imprisoned for holding "Christian" meetings in a Muslim country. It was a drummed-up charge and I was not "holding meetings, nor did I have a Bible in Ashgabat - the capitol of Turkmenistan. I designed and was operating a micro-credit multi-million dollar program of small loans to the poor so they could operate small businesses and generate extra income. Micro-credit is indicative of free markets and provides supplemental income to those with government assigned jobs - which is the entire population in a dictator-led country. If they had killed me, USAID and CAAEF would have pulled all program funds from Turkmenistan. Instead they just threatened me with prison, but allowed me to leave unharmed. The program and the money was then controlled by a local woman who worked for the local government - controlled by one man - named Turkmanbashi, he was fanatical about societal control and another crazed dictator.
This story is relevant because it describes Trump as well. He is not just a liar, a bully a criminal, and probably a traitor, but an archaistic individual who wishes to return the U.S. form of government to obsolete, ancient, and medieval times - centuries ago when King's ruled through terror, torture, murder and prisons that were comparable to the Gulag where Navalny died in Siberia.
It's time for Americans to WAKE UP. Our country is considered a civil society, where the rule of law is critical to daily operations and the safety of all citizens. Imagine a busy intersection where there are no traffic lights and no police to help people navigate. It results in horns honked, disorderliness,
and a morass of confusion and traffic accidents. This is the world that Trump proposes - where the only laws that apply are the ones Trump wishes to work for his benefit.
"On June 1, 2020 and amid the George Floyd protests in D.C., Law Enforcement officers used tear gas and other riot control tactics to forcefully clear peaceful and lawful protesters from Lafayette Square in D.C. to create a path for Trump to walk from the White House to St. John's Episcopal Church and to hold up a Bible for a photo op." Trump does not attend this church and this was an attempt to appeal to potential voters in the Bible Belt region of the U.S. (Wikipedia) This was an affront to the First Amendment right to the freedom of assembly. In July 2020, Trump sent federal agents to Oregon to combat the protests against police brutality and racism. These rioters were escorted into unmarked cars by men wearing no identification. This is NOT how a democracy works.
Trump believes that the use of force is justified, but Oregon's Governor called Trump's action as "simply adding gasoline to a fire." ((NPR, July 2020). He feels that he can do whatever he wishes - including ignoring all others or even existing laws.
Trump's followers demonstrated their willingness to create violence when on Jan. 6th a mob of Trumpers attacked the U.S. Capitol building in an attempt to stop the legal process of counting votes for the legal transfer of Presidential power. "Approximately 749 federal defendants have had their cases adjudicated and 467 have been sentenced to periods of incarceration." (AP News, Jan. 2024). "Washington's federal courthouse remains flooded with trials, guilty plea hearings and sentencings. The hunt for suspects is far from over." (Ibid).
Trump admires "strong dictatorial men". His recent visit with Viktor Orban, Hungary's dictator is an example. Hitler was estimated to have murdered about 6 million human beings, but another million or more died on the battlefields attempting to stop Hitler's regime and madness. History tells us that Stalin, who was perhaps the most vile dictator of all times, killed over 20 million people. Putin has been compared to Stalin and is proud of this assessment. This is relevant because Trump openly admires and emulates Putin.
Putin acquired his dictatorial skills while working in East Germany as a Russian spy. He brought these tools back to Russia, and is now ruling the largest nuclear armed country in the world as a murderous dictator. He has threatened global peace AND the stability of his arch enemy the United States. Over the last 25 years, he has plotted the demise of our form of government and he has used Donald Trump, a capitalist who worships money instead of God, as his stooge. Trump sold his soul and our country to the Russians at least 20 years ago. In 2008, Trump Jr. bragged that the Trump Organization had received large sums from Russian banks. (www.businessinsider) Russian banks are ALL controlled and operated by the KGB/FSB. Trump's businesses were failing; U.S. banks refused to loan him large sums due to his six bankruptcies; and the Russians gave him $100 million - plain and simple. (From Democracy to Democrazy).
The majority of cyber attacks into the U.S. come from Russia - disrupting our food/supply chains, our financial and banking systems, our hospital and medical care, our military and security, and perhaps this year most importantly our elections and probably our polls. As CNN or NYT says that Trump is leading in the polls - I cringe. The polls sway voters, and Putin knows this. He also is shouting to the whole world that "Trump will win the 2024 election." So what do you think he knows that we in the U.S. do not?
Butler was just another person used and abused by Trump. His report sheds more light on to Trump's behavior and disregard for our national classified information and top secret military information. More importantly, there appears to be documents missing. I would not doubt that this information - perhaps critical U.S. nuclear capabilities and military secrets are now in the hands of Putin and have emboldened him to say yesterday "Russia warns that they are ready for nuclear war." (Reuters, 3/13/2024)
I wrote From Democracy to Democrazy with one purpose - to warn Americans and others around the world of the disastrous consequences if Trump is re-elected President of the United States.
Elizabeth www.democrazy2020.org
Can you imagine being a "regular Joe" handling boxes containing documents that, just a short time earlier, required US Generals and other high-ranking Gov’t officials entering high-security rooms to have top-level security clearances just to peek inside?
Vote BLUE.