FILIPINO CHRONICLE  JUNE 17, 2023

as he was told by Trump.

He carried Trump’s boxes out of a storage room, 64 at first, but then brought back only 30. Was he hiding the balance so they couldn’t be retrieved and returned to the archive?

Nauta’s is seen on video moving boxes. In an interview, he contradicts the video. The video doesn’t lie.

That’s loyalty to Trump. But was Nauta any worse than even a Trump supporter – AAPI or not – who still, on the weekend after the indictments were unsealed choose to cheer on Trump?

Guamanian Nauta

It pained me to see how Nauta was snarked at and made fun of, first in the pronunciation of his name in some form of the Anglicized “Nata,” which sounds like “nada” or “nothing,” which is how media folk seemed to patronize him in coverage I saw.

Nauta is Guamanian, a combination of the indigenous Chamorros and the first Filipinos who arrived in Guam in 1500 BC.

I didn’t reach Nauta back in October 2022 when his name was first revealed as a person of interest, but I have chosen to give every syllable their due.

Nata? Nowta? Go slow and it comes out Na-oO-tah.

And then there’s the patronizing comments about his job. “Glorified pool boy” one national anchor called him, as if the standard reference as “Diet Coke Boy” wasn’t bad enough.

Nauta must be used to that kind of disrespect as a native Guamanian. By virtue of being a federal territory, you are a U.S. citizen. You can serve in the military, and according to the Census, Guamanians enlist in the U.S. military at a higher clip than any state in the union. One of every 20 of Guam’s more than 165,000 residents is a military veteran.

Nauta, who enlisted in the Navy as a teenager in 2001, rose the ranks to one of the prized jobs among the non-commissioned ranks, the naval steward spot in the White House. Sure, you’re in the mess detail, but you’re serving the commander-in-chief.

And that man, Trump, likes you.

In some ways, Nauta is the ideal “body man,” or as I prefer, Trump adherent. Guamanians don’t have a vote in federal elections. They have a non-voting delegate in Congress. With no electoral college, they don’t count in presidential politics.

Which is why they have an urgency and purity of loyalty and service to prove their existence. They care and so they matter.

According to reports, Nauta was seen as genuinely caring for everyone he served. But of Trump, it’s been noted Nauta seemed to lack any ulterior motive to cash in on his closeness to the Donald.

He wasn’t a darn sycophant.

Former White House Attorney Ty Cobb, who has said the indictments, in terms of prison time and being convicted made Trump a “dead man,” talked about Nauta, the co-conspirator, in a completely opposite way.

“I’m shocked that he (Nauta) wasn’t adequately represented enough to be persuaded to abandon what is I think his perception that he is still serving his country. Because of his devotion to a man he looked up to in the job he was proud to have as an aide to the President of the United States,” Cobb said on CNN.

He pointed out that Nauta was neither a policy guy, nor an ideologue. He wasn’t a wheeler dealer. He was a man who was simply loyal to the boss he served.

And Nauta was genuinely nice.

“He made meals for people working around the White House, many of us who work late at night, he would check in on us to see if we wanted to anything to eat, he couldn’t be a kinder more thoughtful guy,” Cobb added.

Cobb called Nauta not having worked out an arrangement with the government a “tragedy of the highest proportion.”

In fact, it’s been reported that last fall, the prosecutors sought Nauta’s cooperation to turn on Trump. In one specific instance, Trump lawyers have charged that the Justice Department tried to coerce Nauta to cooperate by bringing up Nauta’s attorney Stanley Woodward’s pending application to be a judge in Washington, DC.

None of Trump’s attorneys or Nauta’s attorney acted in Nauta’s best interest. The indictment says Nauta moved boxes at least five times. That he loaded them up on a plane. That he discovered a spilled

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LET’S ZUMBA | Filipino Community Center | Every Monday starting January 9, 2023 at 6:15pm | FilCom Center, Consuelo Courtyard, 94-428 Mokuola Street, Waipahu | Need to unwind in movement and dance after a long workday? Join the community as we Zumba through the evening. Only $5 per class. Proceeds go to support these programtypes for FilCom Center.

10TH ANNUAL MO’ILI’ILI SUMMER FEST AND BON DANCE | Kamehameha Schools, the Mo’ili’ili Hongwanji Mission, the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai’i, the Mō’ili’ili

Community Center, and the University of Hawaii at Mānoa | July 1, 5-10pm | Old Varsity Theatre Parking Lot, 1110 University Ave., Honolulu | This annual summer fest celebrates the historic Mo’ili’ili with Honolulu’s largest Bon Dance and modern street festival with various food vendors and retailers.