Judge Aileen Cannon held an unusual hearing on Wednesday to consider arguments to throw charges against one of Donald Trump’s co-defendants, his former valet Walt Nauta, in the classified documents case. But it didn’t take much for proceedings to quickly devolve into a shouting match.
Nauta’s concerns were overshadowed in the Ft. Pierce, Florida, courtroom by a disagreement between his lawyer, Stanley Woodward, and prosecutor Jay Bratt. Woodward claimed that Bratt pressured Nauta to cooperate with the prosecution by threatening to hold up Woodward’s nomination to a judgeship. Nauta argued that his lack of cooperation with the Justice Department’s probe into Trump’s mishandling of classified documents was the reason he was charged.
“I had been recommended for a judgeship, that’s beyond dispute,” said Woodward. “There was a folder about defense counsel on the table” during Nauta’s meeting with Bratt, he said, adding that Bratt directly referenced the judicial nomination.
“I think the implication was that I was to travel and convince Mr. Nauta to cooperate with the investigation, and if I didn’t [do] that, there would be consequences,” Woodward added.
Prosecutor David Harbach didn’t take kindly to this account and accusation.
“Mr Woodward’s story of what happened at that meeting is a fantasy,” Harbach said, banging the lectern. “It did not happen.”
“This is a lawyer whose allegations amount basically to him being extorted,” Harbach added, waving his arms before Cannon told him to calm down.
Cannon asked the prosecutor why there wasn’t any evidence gathered of the 2022 conversation, saying, “Why do those comments [about Woodward] have to be made?”
“That is not true, and I didn’t say that,” Harbach shouted, saying that there wasn’t a recording of the conversation between Bratt and Woodward, but that special counsel Jack Smith’s team preserved records of the meeting.
In response, Woodward ran back up to the lectern, saying “I’m here” and offering to testify under oath about his recollection of the meeting.
This hearing was the first in-person proceeding in the Republican presidential nominee’s classified documents case in over a month. On May 7, Cannon announced that the case would be indefinitely delayed to unresolved pretrial motions, fueling ongoing accusations that the judge, a Trump appointee, is deliberately slowing down the case so that it won’t hurt Trump’s election prospects.
But, new evidence has come to light in recently unsealed documents showing that Trump hoarded classified documents even after the 2022 search at Mar-a-Lago. Moreover, after the federal government subpoenaed security footage from his Mar-a-Lago estate, the former president ordered his staffers to avoid security cameras when moving boxes around. Trump faces 42 felony charges in the case related to illegally retaining national security documents and conspiracy to obstruct justice, to which he has pleaded not guilty.
