CNN
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A hearing in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case devolved into shouting Wednesday as defense attorneys fought over allegations of threats made against them last year.
At a morning hearing in Fort Pierce, Florida, Walt Nauta, one of former President Donald Trump’s co-defendants, said special counsel Jack Smith’s team accused Trump of selective and retaliatory action. He was planning to make this argument. Presiding Judge Eileen Cannon did not issue a ruling from the court.
But the hearing quickly pivoted to a long-standing disagreement over an August 2022 meeting between prosecutor Jay Blatt and Nauta’s defense attorney, Stanley Woodward. Woodward alleges in court proceedings and filings that Blatt tried to pressure Nauta into running against Trump by threatening to influence judicial nominations.
Nauta claims the criminal charges in the case are in retaliation for his failure to cooperate with a Justice Department investigation into the former president’s storage of classified documents in his mansion.
From the US Department of Justice
This photo from the US Department of Justice purports to show Walt Nauta moving boxes inside former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.
“I was recommended to the judge, that’s not up for debate,” Woodward said Wednesday. He said during that meeting, “there was a folder on the table about defense attorneys,” and claimed that Blatt had mentioned his recommendation to the judge.
“I think the implication was that I would travel and convince Mr. Nauta to cooperate with the investigation, and if he didn’t there would be consequences,” Woodward said.
Prosecutor David Harbach then took the stand and accused Woodward of engaging in “procedural gamesmanship” by making “ridiculous arguments” about the meeting.
“Mr. Woodward’s story of what happened at that meeting is a fantasy,” cried Mr. Harbach, clapping his hands on the podium in front of him. “That didn’t happen.”
Wednesday’s heated hearing came as the Manhattan hush-money case against Trump nears its conclusion and a new phase of pretrial activity begins in the federal secrets prosecution in Florida.
The hearing was Cannon’s first since he indefinitely postponed the start of his trial, which was scheduled to begin earlier this week. It’s been more than a month since the judge last held a public in-person hearing in the case, but she has held at least one closed hearing since then.
President Trump is accused of removing classified national defense documents from the White House after leaving office and resisting government efforts to retrieve the materials. President Trump, Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos de Oliveira have all maintained their innocence.
During Wednesday’s hearing, Judge Harbach slammed Woodward, saying he chose not to report the incident until months later and had repeatedly changed his recollection of the conversation.
“This attorney says that the allegations are basically extortion,” Mr. Harbach said of Mr. Woodward, waving his arms.
Woodward sat behind the prosecutor, holding hands and bowing his head.
The judge quickly reprimanded Harbach and told his lawyer to “calm down.” Mr Cannon questioned why evidence was not collected about what happened in the 2022 conversation, saying: [about Woodward] Do I have to make one? ”
“That’s not true and I never said that,” Harbach yelled back. Prosecutors said there were no recordings of the conversations between Blatt and Woodward, but Smith’s team kept records of all the meetings.
Mr. Woodward returned to the podium and said, “I’m here,” and offered to testify under oath about what he remembered about the meeting.
Nauta’s request to dismiss the case was the first of two matters presented to Cannon on Wednesday. The afternoon hearing will center on the co-defendants’ arguments that the indictment has technical flaws and should be dismissed.
Trump had received permission from the judge to skip Wednesday’s hearing.
In adjourning the trial, Cannon pointed to the large number of unresolved pre-trial matters caused by not putting a new date on the calendar. Wednesday will begin a series of hearings scheduled through late July that will resolve some, but not all, pretrial issues.
The slow pace of Cannon’s case has drawn criticism from outside legal experts, who have accused the Trump-appointed judge of exploiting delaying tactics by potential Republican White House nominees. Unless Cannon gains significant traction, it seems unlikely the charges will be brought to a jury before the 2024 election. If Trump wins the White House, the charges against him are expected to be dismissed.
Until recently, some of President Trump’s major motions attacking prosecutors weren’t even publicly documented. The proceedings have become mired in disputes over what should be redacted in public documents.
On Tuesday, hundreds of pages of previously sealed court filings were made public as part of an effort to have charges against the former president dismissed. Those filings include a previously unsealed March 2023 ruling by a federal judge in Washington, D.C., finding there was “sufficient” evidence that Trump committed the crime. This allowed investigators to obtain information from the former lawyer that would normally be protected by attorney-client privilege.
Trump is seeking to destroy that evidence, as well as evidence obtained during an FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago in August 2022, from which investigators obtained many of the documents that form the basis of several of the charges against Trump.
Those motions are not scheduled for argument Wednesday, and Cannon has not yet set a hearing on them.
In an order allowing the release of documents filed Sunday, Ms. Cannon fired at prosecutors. This was one of several robberies she committed at Mr. Smith’s office. He had asked for the information in the newly unsealed documents to be redacted, even though the special counsel’s office had previously given the OK to release the full information in a previous court filing. He expressed “concerns” in particular.
“The court is disappointed with this development. The sealing and redaction rules should be applied consistently and fairly, based on sufficient factual and legal proof,” Cannon wrote. “And parties may not make requests that undermine prior representations or positions except with full disclosure and adequate explanation to the court.”
This heading and article have been updated with additional developments.
