‘Red flags went up’: Former Mar-a-Lago worker details Pratt’s relationship with Trump

Washington: Australian billionaire Anthony Pratt has been accused of buying access to Donald Trump by a long-time employee of the former president’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

In an exclusive interview with CNN, Brian Butler, a central witness in the investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents, spoke out about the case, which is one of four criminal trials the Republican faces before this year’s election.

Donald Trump and Anthony Pratt at Pratt Industries’ box factory in Ohio in 2019.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Butler – referenced as “Trump Employee 5” in the classified documents case overseen by Special Counsel Jack Smith – told CNN host Kaitlan Collins how Pratt, one of Australia’s richest men and a member of the Mar-a-Lago club, flew in for a meeting with Trump in April 2021 and later divulged top secrets.

After the meeting, Butler claims Pratt got in a car with Butler and his chief of staff, who asked him: “How did it go?”

According to Butler, the chairman of multinational paper and packaging company Visy Industries immediately divulged classified information that Trump had given him “about Russian submarines and US submarines”.

“I’m in the car. I’m like: did I just hear that?” Butler recalled. “He went straight to the point, he told me … something that in my mind would more than likely be classified.”

“So it was clear to you that he was basically seeking access to Trump?” Collins asked, referencing claims that Pratt spent $US1 million for tickets to a Mar-a-Lago New Year’s Eve gala – essentially paying a massive mark-up for tickets that Butler claimed “might cost $1000 to $1500 per person”.

“Oh absolutely. I mean, red flags went up in my mind years before that,” Butler replied. “Here’s a guy just buying access.”

In a draft copy of a speech Pratt delivered to a Jewish group in late 2019, Pratt describes how he “became a member of the Mar-a- Lago resort” as a “strategic” play to secure access to Trump.

“My membership has given me a seat at the table where the president relaxes socially and mingles with his guests … The key thing being a member at Mar-a-Lago has done has been that I see the president a few times a year.”

Donald Trump departs after speaking at his Mar-a-Lago estate after dominating Super Tuesday.Credit: AP

Pratt has previously not responded to requests for comments from this masthead about his relationship with Trump. CNN said Pratt had also previously declined to comment when approached on the topic and a representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.

Comment had also been sought by this masthead relating to claims made in the Butler interview.

The charges Trump faces over classified documents relate to material the former president took after leaving the White House in 2021 and which were stored in boxes all over his Mar-a-Lago resort, including “in a ballroom, a bathroom and shower, an office space, his bedroom, and a storage room”.

They included information relating to nuclear programs and military vulnerabilities, to intelligence that should have only been shared with the intelligence heads of the Five Eyes” countries, including Australia.

While Trump has repeatedly denied the claims, Butler disagreed and outlined how he unknowingly participated in transporting boxes of classified documents.

“For [Trump] to get up there all the time and say the things he says about this being a witch hunt and everything. … He just can’t take responsibility for anything,” Butler said.

The latest revelations come after Pratt was in the spotlight last year amid a joint investigation by this masthead and 60 Minutes, which uncovered separate audio recordings of Pratt talking about his relationship with “mafia”-like Trump and his claim of a $US1 million payment to Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.

The covert recordings also reveal that Pratt had claimed Trump disclosed non-public details about US military action in Iraq and a private conversation with Iraq’s leader.

Trump dismissed those accounts at the time, posting on social media that the stories “about a red-haired weirdo from Australia, named Anthony Pratt, is Fake News”.

However, the investigation substantiated previous reporting from America’s ABC News that suggested Trump shared more classified information than was previously known, and that Pratt had divulged that information with scores of people, including former prime ministers and journalists.

The Australian businessman could now be one of dozens of witnesses in the trial against Trump, although the starting court date is yet to be determined.

With eight months until the election, Trump has argued that he is immune from prosecution by the Presidential Records Act and that criminal law involving the mishandling of national security secrets can’t be applied to him as a former president.

Aileen Cannon, the judge overseeing the trial – who Trump appointed while he was president – has said she wants to hear oral arguments about Trump’s immunity claim this Thursday (Friday AEDT).

The Republican frontrunner also faces a trial in Washington DC for trying to overthrow the 2020 election, a trial in Georgia for trying to interfere in the election in that state, and a trial in New York, starting this month, over alleged hush money paid to a porn star with whom he had an affair.

“Not fair that the Radical Left Democrats are attempting to take me to trial smack in the middle of Election Season,” he wrote tonight. “It’s a Political Witch Hunt. This cannot be allowed to happen. ELECTION INTERFERENCE!”

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